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Total 78 articles, created at 2016-08-06 00:00 1 Apple offers $200,000 to bug hunters But Apple's bug bounty scheme is strictly 'by invitation' 2016-08-05 20:10 2KB (2.09/3) only,Security,Software ,Apple,security www.computing.co.uk 2 Black Hat 2016: 10 Security Threats To Watch - Page: 1 Black Hat 2016 featured thousands of hackers and security (1.13/3) professionals looking to see the latest and greatest threats facing the security space. Here are 10 that stood out from this year's event. 2016-08-05 14:54 1KB www.crn.com 3 The best pro gaming to watch this weekend The International looms, but there's still loads to watch. (1.06/3) 2016-08-05 17:00 3KB www.pcgamer.com 4 Envelop VR for Windows public beta, Apple to pay bug bounty for reported flaws, and Visual (1.04/3) Studio 1.4—SD Times news digest: Aug. 5, 2016 Envelop VR launches its virtual reality product in public beta; Apple will pay bug bounty hunters for reported flaws 2016-08-05 12:02 5KB sdtimes.com 5 'Mayhem' System Wins DARPA's Cyber Grand Challenge

(1.03/3) An automated system called Mayhem took home the top prize in the Cyber Grand Challenge, sponsored by DARPA. 2016-08-05 12:05 3KB www.informationweek.com 6 Windows 10's 1607 becomes the enterprise deployment default

(1.03/3) The just-released Windows 10 Anniversary Update will be the version Microsoft's biggest customers use to migrate their PCs. 2016-08-05 09:57 5KB www.computerworld.com 7 'Mayhem' takes first in DARPA's all- computer hacking challenge

(1.03/3) In the first head-to-head hacking competition of autonomous computers, a system developed by a team of Pittsburgh-based researchers is the presumptive winner. 2016-08-05 08:49 5KB www.itnews.com

8 Two major Windows 10 updates scheduled for 2017 Windows 10's Redstone 2 and Redstone 3 updates really are (1.03/3) coming in 2017, according to a Microsoft blog post. 2016-08-05 07:12 1KB www.itnews.com 9 How Companies Can Protect Network, Apps From the Rio Olympics

(1.02/3) Like it or not, employees are going to follow the Olympics at work, which will put a strain on networks and business apps. Here are ways networks can handle the surge in traffic. 2016-08-05 19:04 2KB www.eweek.com 10 Rackspace ‘on brink’ of sale to private equity house – report

(1.02/3) Reports suggest managed cloud company could be sold in a matter of days, ending its time as a publicly listed company. 2016-08-05 14:58 2KB www.computerweekly.com 11 15 best laptops you can buy in 2016 The best notebooks for your every need 2016-08-05 19:00 11KB (0.06/3) feedproxy.google.com

12 Best iPad games: the top free and paid-for titles around (0.04/3) The best apps for your Apple slate 2016-08-05 15:02 49KB feedproxy.google.com 13 HTC Vive vs Oculus Rift: which VR headset is better? (0.01/3) Getting real with virtual reality headsets comparisons 2016-08-05 19:01 6KB feedproxy.google.com 14 The best DualShock 4 deals in August 2016: find a cheap PS4 controller (0.01/3) Buy an extra PS4 controller and play with friends or keep a spare charged 2016-08-05 16:16 1KB feedproxy.google.com 15 ShoreTel to Review Its Options, Including a Possible Sale As it shifts from to the cloud, the UC vendor is forming a committee that will take a look at all options, from a sale to partnerships. 2016-08-05 23:12 5KB www.eweek.com 16 Intel Cites Overheating Risk in Recall of All Basis Peak Smartwatches DAILY VIDEO: Intel cites overheating issues in recall of Basis Peak smartwatches; BlackBerry Hub+ productivity suite now available for Android phones; Black Hat: do USB keys left in parking lots get picked up?; and there's more. 2016-08-05 22:07 8KB www.eweek.com

17 How Pegasystems Is Helping to Digitally Transform Companies Organizations are turning to Pegasystems to transform the way they operate and address new challenges and opportunities within their markets. 2016-08-05 21:07 1KB www.eweek.com 18 Keeping the Hacker Tracker Mobile App Secure VIDEO: We look at a mobile app that is designed to be secure enough for a hacker conference. 2016-08-05 20:08 2KB www.eweek.com 19 10 Smartwatches, Fitness Trackers Worth Checking Out Depending on what you are looking for in a wearable, there's a device out there for you. eWEEK looks at 10 wearables that deliver high-quality features. 2016-08-05 20:08 2KB www.eweek.com 20 BlackBerry Flexes Patent Muscles, Sues Avaya The device maker is putting greater emphasis on software licensing and claims Avaya is infringing on eight patents in multiple products. 2016-08-05 20:07 4KB www.eweek.com 21 Samsung's Stylus-Equipped Galaxy Note 7 Gets Security Improvements A vastly improved stylus, iris scanning capabilities and more refined onboard apps capabilities arrive with the new Note 7. 2016-08-05 20:07 1KB www.eweek.com 22 Id Software doesn’t know yet if Quake Champions will be free-to-play But Doom's success is making Quake easier, says id's Tim Willits. 2016-08-05 19:15 3KB www.pcgamer.com 23 10 best travel hacks to solve common road warrior woes Must-have travel tech for all your wanderings 2016-08-05 19:03 11KB feedproxy.google.com 24 Master Gul'dan in Heroes of the Storm For he's a jolly good Fel orc. 2016-08-05 19:00 5KB www.pcgamer.com 25 PS4.5 NEO release date, news and rumors: all the latest on Sony's PlayStation 4 upgrade Will Sony really drop an enhanced console after three years? 2016-08-05 18:42 8KB feedproxy.google.com 26 Study shows how enterprise can be victimized by dropped USB keys Network equipment at risk from USB driver bug Security awareness training is a never-ending duty for infosec teams, although some CSOs despair that the message doesn't always get through. But 2016-08-05 18:03 2KB www.itworldcanada.com 27 The 10 best graphics cards in the world Upgrade your gaming rig in a huge way 2016-08-05 18:02 8KB feedproxy.google.com 28 Take-Two boss says he's not giving up on Battleborn It's not over yet. 2016-08-05 17:27 2KB www.pcgamer.com 29 Sportsbooks That Cater To An African Audience Sports’ betting in Africa is growing with each passing day. In the past horse racing and traditional national games were the predominant offer for betting, and African players could only dream of playing for real money online casino blackjack like for example Australian and New Zealand gamblers did... 2016-08-05 16:45 3KB pctechmag.com 30 How to get a year of premium antivirus protection absolutely free Protect your PC for 356 days using free trials from the biggest names in online security 2016-08-05 16:30 14KB feedproxy.google.com 31 The best Hearthstone teams Which rosters are on the rise, who's struggling, and why does the game need teams anyway? 2016-08-05 16:20 13KB www.pcgamer.com 32 Steam hardware survey shows GeForce GTX 970 still holding strong Waiting for Pascal to make its presence known. 2016-08-05 16:15 1KB www.pcgamer.com

41 BTRFS RAID code needs a rewrite Code behind Oracle’s filesystem seems to have fatal flaws when dealing with RAID 2016-08-05 13:58 2KB sdtimes.com 42 Nikon D3300 vs D5300: Which DSLR should you choose? Is it worth spending the extra on a D5300? 2016-08-05 13:49 3KB feedproxy.google.com 43 Quake Champions brings back rocket- jumps and glorious deathmatches First gameplay trailer shows a true return to Q3A roots 2016-08-05 13:35 2KB feedproxy.google.com 44 CompuCom Launches Real-Time Threat Management Solution Via Cloud, With Intel's Help - Page: 1 The Dallas-based systems integrator is offering its first SIEM solution by leveraging McAfee's ESM tool. 2016-08-05 13:09 3KB www.crn.com 45 HTC's Viveport front-end will offer VR content beyond games The SteamVR software interface that powers HTC's Vive headset is a solid tool for gamers, but HTC wants to broaden the appeal of... 2016-08-05 12:36 1KB techreport.com 46 Women Solution Provider Execs Cheer Apple's Move To Close The Wage Gap - Page: 1 The gap, which saw women earn 99.6 cents to the dollar that men earned, is now closed, Apple says in a new report. 2016-08-05 12:29 2KB www.crn.com 47 Svitzer Marine tracks tugboats with 4G ship-to-shore Wi-Fi Maersk-owned tugboat operator Svitzer Marine has deployed Cradlepoint rugged networking solutions to support its fleet operations in ports around the world 2016-08-05 12:09 2KB www.computerweekly.com 48 Banner Health cyber breach underlines need for faster intrusion detection A data breach at Banner Health has highlighted the importance of intrusion detection and prompted calls for greater cyber security investment in the increasingly targeted healthcare industry 2016-08-05 12:07 1KB www.computerweekly.com

49 Entries Open For The Appsafrica Innovation Awards 2016 Appsafrica,a leading dedicated portal for mobile, apps developers, startups and the tech community across Africa, has announced it is accepting applications for the 2016 edition of its innovation awards. Appsafrica Innovation Awards celebrate the best in mobile and tech from across Africa, providing winners with global publicity... 2016-08-05 11:56 1KB pctechmag.com 50 5 Companies That Came To Win This Week - Page: 1 For the week ending Aug. 5, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their 'A' game to the channel. 2016-08-05 11:50 1KB www.crn.com 51 Researcher hides stealthy malware inside legitimate digitally signed files A new technique allows attackers to hide malicious code inside digitally signed files without breaking their signatures and then to load that code directly into the memory of another process. 2016-08-05 11:49 5KB www.infoworld.com 52 The Week in iOS Apps: Ready for Rio? This week's roundup includes a trio of apps to help you maximize your enjoyment of the Olympics. 2016-08-05 11:45 3KB www.itnews.com 53 Android device updates: August security patches are on their way for Nexus devices Lollipop is still king, with Marshmallow only making an incremental leap forward with the latest release of Android distribution numbers. 2016-08-05 11:33 1KB www.itnews.com 54 In pictures: Wearables at the Rio 2016 Olympics Wearables will change the way we view events, how athletes train, and even how attendees protect themselves from crime and the Zika virus. Here are cool wearables making the rounds in Rio. 2016-08-05 11:25 4KB www.pcworld.com 55 iPhone 7 rumors: Wireless EarPods will sport a custom 'low-power' Bluetooth chip Rumor has it the iPhone 7 hits store shelves on Sept. 16, and it might not have the Home button every iPhone has had since...well, forever. 2016-08-05 11:20 2KB www.itnews.com

56 IT career roadmap: The journey to certified scrum trainer Angela Johnson took the long and winding road to her current career, but her varied experience and love for teaching opened up limitless possibilities as a certified scrum trainer. 2016-08-05 11:17 7KB www.computerworld.com 57 Some Pokémon Go maps in jeopardy as Niantic admits to blocking 'scrapers' Niantic, the developer of Pokémon Go, has said that it has blocked "scraper" Pokémon Go maps from accessing its APIs and determining the location of Pokémon outside of the real world. 2016-08-05 11:15 3KB www.itnews.com 58 : alternatives to the defunct Google sync utility Google recently pulled the plug on its Outlook calendar sync utility, so what is the alternative? Here are a few suggestions on how to sync your Google and Outlook calendars. 2016-08-05 11:12 6KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 59 Google's beta app is bringing Google Now cards and other tricks to Now on Tap The predictive service is always a work in progress, and the latest tweaks might make it a more useful aide for your day. 2016-08-05 10:54 1KB www.itnews.com 60 Blizzard may be working on a StarCraft HD remaster First details on a potential StarCraft HD remaster are rumored to arrive in September, with more to follow at BlizzCon this year. 2016-08-05 10:32 1KB www.itnews.com 61 Why the ‘cyber kill chain’ needs an upgrade One of the most popular models for analyzing cyberattacks doesn’t focus enough on what to do after adversaries break into networks successfully, which they inevitable will do, Black Hat 2016 attendees were told this week in Las Vegas. 2016-08-05 10:21 4KB www.itnews.com 62 Deals of the week: cheap SSDs, a mechanical keyboard, and more Welcome to another round of Friday deals, gerbils. We've scoured the web for the best discounts around on PC components and peripherals... 2016-08-05 10:17 1KB techreport.com 63 Facebook starts testing a Snapchat-style camera with MSQRD selfie filters After Instagram introduced Stories, Facebook begins testing more familiar features in its all-out attack against Snapchat. 2016-08-05 10:15 2KB www.itnews.com 64 4 Major Vulnerabilities Discovered In HTTP/2 Protocol Web administrators take note: The vulnerabilities Imperva discovered in the HTTP/2 protocol were reported to vendors, and patched versions are already available. 2016-08-05 10:05 4KB www.informationweek.com 65 NPD Group: Top 8 Best-Selling Tablet Brands In 2016 Q2 - Page: 1 Apple is widening its lead over competitors in terms of tablet sales through distributors, according to market research firm NPD. Here's how the market stacks up. 2016-08-05 10:02 1KB www.crn.com 66 Apple's Swift 4 road map focuses on ABI, concurrency Even before the release of Swift 3, Apple is talking up Swift 4 features like ABI stability, string processing, concurrency, and new scripting capabilities 2016-08-05 10:00 4KB www.infoworld.com 67 Report: Nexus home button animation and 'night light' option appear amid a batch of leaks A quick double-tap on the home screen could also reveal all those notifications waiting for you. 2016-08-05 09:54 2KB www.itnews.com 68 6 high-tech ways thieves can steal connected cars Your car provides you with more than just transportation. And criminals want all that information. 2016-08-05 09:45 4KB www.computerworld.com 69 Mars rover Curiosity celebrates fourth anniversary The rover has found evidence of water on the surface of the planet and in its soil, and that its rocks contain sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon -- all key chemical ingredients for life. 2016-08-05 09:40 4KB www.computerworld.com 70 UK government hit with new complaint about hacking abroad A group of privacy advocates and internet providers has filed a new challenge to the UK government's use of bulk hacking abroad. 2016-08-05 09:13 2KB www.itnews.com 71 Artificial Intelligence vs. Intelligence Augmentation Both conceived in the 1950s, which has greater relevance today? 2016-08-05 08:40 8KB www.itnews.com 72 Spotify's latest personalized playlist wants to put new releases on your radar Spotify's Release Radar is the company's latest personalized music playlist designed to deliver fresh tunes every Friday. 2016-08-05 08:14 1KB www.itnews.com 73 Automation key to getting SDN security right Exploring how software defined networking impacts security, and how concerns around visibility and control can be alleviated 2016-08-05 08:11 3KB www.itnews.com 74 IT COST commission says feds could save $5.8 billion on IT A joint private-public commission, IT COST, recently offered 21 recommendations to improve transparency, reduce waste and increase the efficiency of IT spending within federal agencies. 2016-08-05 07:57 4KB www.itnews.com 75 The Trump train wreck fueled by confirmation bias Donald Trump doesn’t believe in hard facts, writes Rob Enderle. Trump is essentially the living definition of confirmation bias, which is a company killer and will likely be the downfall of Trump. 2016-08-05 07:54 4KB www.itnews.com 76 Hotel chain bets big on digital transformation and is seeing great results Meliá Hotels teams with Accenture to personalize the customer experience using digital tools 2016-08-05 07:20 5KB www.itnews.com 77 Apple is losing smartphone share in India despite recent efforts Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has described India as one of the company's fastest growing markets and has proposed to the government a program to offer refurbished phones in the country as a way to get around the high prices of its devices in a price- sensitive market. 2016-08-05 04:41 3KB www.computerworld.com

78 The GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition & ASUS Strix GTX 1060 Review Back at a trade show some time ago, I once had a reader ask me what the most important price tier was for our... 2016-08-05 02:00 10KB www.anandtech.com Articles

Total 78 articles, created at 2016-08-06 00:00

1 Apple offers $200,000 to bug hunters (2.09/3) Apple has become the latest company to set-up a bug bounty scheme in a bid to persuade hackers and security specialists to come forward with information about security flaws, rather than sell them to the highest bidder. Ivan Krstic, Apple's head of security engineering and architecture, announced Apple's scheme at this week's Black Hat security event in Las Vegas, Nevada and revealed that Apple will pay out as much as $200,000 for flaws found in its secure-boot firmware, for example. There has been money to be made from picking apart Apple's iOS operating system for a while, and just not from Apple. Instead, the bounties have been offered by third parties, including Zerodium, which paid a $1m iOS 9 bug bounty in 2015. In addition, national governments, including that of the US, have been crawling all over Apple's ecosystem in a bid to find ways to crack the devices. Apple's move ought to create a better relationship between the company and crackers, as well as helping the company to stay one step ahead of potential hackers, particularly well-financed, state-sponsored attackers. "We've had great help from researchers like you in improving iOS security all along. Feedback that we've heard pretty consistently from my team at Apple and from researchers directly is that it's getting increasingly difficult to find some of those most critical security vulnerabilities," Wired quoted Krstic as saying. "So the Apple Security Bounty Programme is going to reward researchers who share critical vulnerabilities with Apple... "We go to tremendous lengths when it comes to engineering these security systems that provide trust in how we protect user data," Krstic added as he flashed some of that Apple cabbage at the hacking community. "We're fortunate that we've earned trust from our customers, but we realise that that's something we have to keep earning," he said.

Apple Launches Bug Bounty at Black Hat Security Conference eweek.com

Apple Launches Bug Bounty Program, A Security 'Mea Culpa' - Page: 1 crn.com 2016-08-05 20:10 Dave Neal www.computing.co.uk

2 Black Hat 2016: 10 Security Threats To Watch - Page: 1 (1.13/3) Talkin' Threats Thousands of hackers and security professionals turned out in Las Vegas this week to the annual Black Hat conference, looking to see the latest and greatest threats facing the security space today. In presentations throughout the week, security researchers and hackers presented their exploit and vulnerability findings, revealing vulnerabilities in connected devices, business infrastructure and more. The threats this year included vulnerabilities in cars, software- defined networking, ATMs, cloud infrastructure, payment systems and more. For solution providers and their business clients, these types of findings help raise awareness around security and help them fine- tune their strategies to address these threats. Take a look at 10 that stood out from this year's event.

Apple Launches Bug Bounty at Black Hat Security Conference eweek.com 2016-08-05 14:54 Sarah Kuranda www.crn.com

3 The best pro gaming to watch this weekend (1.06/3) As you might expect, the Dota 2 scene is extremely quiet this weekend. As the International group stages come to an end (day three is starting right now, incidentally:) players retreat to their training rooms in preparation for next week's main event. Elsewhere in the world of competitive gaming, however, there's lots to enjoy: from a Heroes of the Storm regional to Rocket League's first grand international grand final. GL HF! The best of North American HotS compete for a share of $100,000 and a spot at the Global Championship at BlizzCon in November. Heroes of the Storm has had its ups and downs as an esport since launch, but as Hannah Dwan observes it's become a reliable source of underdog success stories. This weekend's tournament is a good opportunity to see that trend continue. Play began today and continues throughout the weekend starting at 10:00 PDT/19:00 CEST each day. Find the livestream here. Hopefully you're reading this on Friday, because the best Overwatch taking place this weekend is only a few hours away. Some of the best North American Overwatch talent will be battling tonight starting at 12:00 PDT/21:00 CEST with EnVyUS vs. Team Liquid followed by Cloud9 vs. TSM an hour later. Tune in on Twitch. After months of qualifiers, the inaugural Rocket League Championship Series is reaching its final days. There's $55,000 up for grabs for the best players of this nascent esport, with games taking place live in Los Angeles. If you're in the area you can attend live at Avalon Hollywood ( details here ). The action starts at 10:00 PDT/19:00 CEST on both Saturday and Sunday. Find the livestream on Rocket League's official Twitch channel. There's lots of League season play taking place around the world this weekend, from China to Korea to North America. On Saturday, check out Korea's LCK and China's LPL from 07:00 CEST—22:00 PDT on Friday night for US viewers. Closer to home, play in the NA LCS begins at 12:00 PDT/21:00 CEST. On Sunday, your options are limited to the Chinese LPL with the same timings as Saturday. As ever, further team and schedule information as well as livestreams can be found on LoLesports. This weekend the globetrotting fighting game party bus rolls into dazzling Birmingham, UK. Games played include Street Fighter V, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, Guilty Gear, Tekken and Smash. The majority of the top cuts are being played on Sunday, with SFV and Mortal Kombat beginning at 13:00 CEST/04:00 PDT. You should be able to catch some Tekken and Guilty Gear on Saturday, however, starting at 15:00 CEST/06:00 PDT. This is a ranking tournament for SFV, so expect some top-tier play with a selection of international guests. Find the livestream here. The best writing in PC games pcgamer.com

Best free iPad games 2016 feedproxy.google.com 2016-08-05 17:00 Chris Thursten www.pcgamer.com

4 Envelop VR for Windows public beta, Apple to pay bug bounty for reported flaws, and Visual Studio 1.4—SD Times news digest: Aug. 5, 2016 (1.04/3) Envelop VR has introduced its Envelop for Windows, a computing platform that enables interaction with Windows applications while immersed in a virtual reality headset. Envelop for Windows allows users to shop online, watch YouTube videos, and work in Microsoft Office, all at the same time. With this product, users can have control over each window’s size and location in a three-dimensional space. Users can also open multiple windows, adjust them to their liking, and place them wherever for more customization and improved productivity while computing. The software also comes with designed environments so users can change their backdrop scene and personalize their virtual reality space. Envelop runs on Windows 10 with a VR-ready GPU, according to the company. Envelop for Windows will allow a soon-to-be-released SDK that will allow developers to extend legacy two-dimensional applications and websites, according to the company. Envelop software will also allow developers to use the toolkit to create new VR content or enable them to easily turn legacy content into virtual reality content. Envelop for Windows is compatible with the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift VR headset. The beta is available to the on Steam for free. Apple to pay bug bounty for reported flaws Apple is taking extra steps to finding product and software flaws by paying outside hackers bug bounties. This includes US$25,000 for reported digital compartments flaws, $50,000 for a way into iCloud data, and $200,000 to turn over critical vulnerabilities in Apple’s firmware, The New York Times reported. Apple announced the list of vulnerabilities at Black Hat USA, even though Apple has stayed away from offering bug bounties for years, the report said. Originally, it credited anyone who turned over bugs by putting their names on its website, which isn’t comparable to the other large companies like Facebook that pay their bug hunters handsomely. Additionally, any hacker who donates their bug bounty reward to charity will see a matched donation from Apple. Coding Dojo partners with Bellevue College Coding Dojo and Bellevue College in Washington are partnering to bring in-demand programming languages and technology courses to the college. These classes will be hosted at Bellevue College as well as online. Bellevue College will be the first college to join Coding Dojo’s Coding for Higher Education program, which is offered in Los Angeles, San Jose, Seattle and surrounding areas. Starting in the fall, Bellevue College and Coding Dojo will offer two new courses for two software stacks used to build websites and web applications. The courses will provide information on Ruby on Rails and JavaScript/MEAN. Each course will include three modules on different aspects of the programming stacks, and the courses will combine onsite teaching with remote support from the online learning platform of Coding Dojo. Visual Studio 1.4 Version 1.4 of Visual Studio is available, and new features and fixes from July that include improvements to Workbench, the editor, debugging, and extension authoring. During July, Visual Studio slowed down feature work so it could reduce the bug backlog and remove engineering debt, according the Visual Studio code team. Some of the highlights include editor actions like open preview and switch to changes view returning to the title bar, as well as IME and copy/paste support in the integrated terminal. With Visual Studio 1.4, there is better snippet and suggestions control, and a new insert snippet command with dedicated UI. In Workbench, Visual Studio added tabbed headings and put editor actions into the context menu to “gain some space,” according to the team. User feedback said that this made the actions harder to discover, which is why the team has added them back into the title header, it said. Also, there have been some small improvements for the JSON completions, like completions for empty arrays, objects and strings if the property type is known but the schema does not describe any defaults. VS Code now supports restarting execution at a stack frame, which is useful to developers who are in situations where they want to rerun a small portion of the code with modified input values, the team said.

Apple Launches Bug Bounty Program, A Security 'Mea Culpa' - Page: 1 crn.com 2016-08-05 12:02 Madison Moore sdtimes.com

5 'Mayhem' System Wins DARPA's Cyber Grand Challenge (1.03/3) DARPA has named the presumptive winner of its Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC), which wrapped up Aug. 4 at the Paris Las Vegas Conference Center. A system called "Mayhem" was declared the likely winner of the world's first all- hacking competition, which is culminating a three-year push by DARPA to drive innovation in cyber-security. Mayhem was built by a team named ForAllSecure , which is made up of researchers based in Pittsburgh. The company focuses on building software security tools for developers, end-users, and the enterprise, as well as creating hacking programs to educate IT professionals. [Read: US Internet Speeds Improve, Still Lag Behind Other Countries .] The CGC is a hacking competition created with the goal of building automatic defensive systems to detect and evaluate flaws, build patches, and deploy them on a network in real-time. The idea is that these technologies will eventually be able to address software vulnerabilities before hackers can exploit them. As more and more systems are connected to the internet, there is an increasingly higher demand for systems with automated and scalable vulnerability detection. Today's strategies for finding and addressing bugs are still mostly done by hand, with security experts combing lines of code to find openings for attack. ForAllSecure was one of seven teams competing in front of 5,000 cybersecurity professionals for nearly $4 million in prizes. All seven groups consisted of experts including private-sector systems experts, white-hat hackers, and academics. CGC marked the first time the developers behind some of the world's most advanced bug-hunting systems battled in competition. Participants competed for 10 hours by playing Capture the Flag, a cyber-security exercise involving a computer packed with bugs hidden inside custom-built software. The competing machines had to find and fix flawed code within seconds, and detect their opponents' vulnerabilities before defending systems could. Attendees watched the battle unfold on giant monitors, while remote viewers could live-stream the event. The first-place winners will receive $2 million in cash; second- and third- place winners will take home $1 million and $750,000, respectively, as reported in a release on the news. The presumptive second-place winner is Xandra, a system created by tech TECHx from Ithaca, N. Y., and Charlottesville, Va. Mechanical Phish, a system by team Shellphish from Santa Barbara, Calif., was declared the presumptive third-place winner. DARPA notes how these creations, which it calls "the first generation of automated network defense systems," cannot yet meaningfully defend production networks or compete with expert analysts. This is why it created the CGC: to give new entrants the change to compete in "a league of their own. " "This may be the end of DARPA's Cyber Grand Challenge but it's just the beginning of a revolution in software security," Mike Walker, DARPA program manager, wrote in a statement. "In the same way that the Wright brothers' first flight -- although it didn't go very far -- launched a chain of events that quickly made the world a much smaller place, we now have seen for the first time autonomy involving the kind of reasoning that's required for cyber defense," Walker added. "This is a huge advance compared to where the cyber defense world was yesterday. "

‘Mayhem’ wins $2M first prize in DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge itworld.com 2016-08-05 12:05 Kelly Sheridan www.informationweek.com

6 6 Windows 10's 1607 becomes the enterprise deployment default (1.03/3) The just-released Windows 10 Anniversary Update will be the version Microsoft's biggest customers use to migrate their PCs. Due to timing on the part of both Microsoft and enterprises, Windows 10's support cycles -- and old habits -- this week's upgrade, tagged as 1607 to mark year and month , will shoulder the responsibility as the version destined for deployment. "[Anniversary Update] is the right version for enterprises [because] it's like the first service pack," said Steve Kleynhans, an analyst at Gartner. Microsoft may have abandoned the term "service pack" -- a label for the intermittent updates composed of previously-released bug fixes -- but the moniker remains alive among IT professionals. Service packs marked milestones in each Windows edition's lifetime, and the first was considered the most important because it represented a more stable build from which the biggest bugs had been expunged. Many swore to await Service Pack 1, or SP1, in a new Windows release before daring to migrate from a predecessor. The initial release, the rule of thumb went, was too risky to roll onto corporate PCs. Enterprises view 1607 as analogous to a Windows 10 SP1, in part because of its timing: Like many SP1 releases, this week's upgrade went live a year after the original. "Enterprises used 1511 for testing," said Kleynhans about the November 2015 upgrade. "But 1607 will be what they roll out. " The reasons go beyond habit, however. Microsoft discarded decades of practice when it accelerated development and release schedules for Windows 10, promising regular updates and upgrades to refresh what it's called its last operating system, rather than wait three or more years before debuting new features. But that tempo required new rules, particularly for support: Microsoft did not want to be handcuffed to older code. For most corporate PCs, the former 10 years of support shrank to 12-18 months, the span between the designation of a version as ready for the "Current Branch for Business" (CBB) track and the appearance of that version's second successor on the CBB. 1607 just hit the "Current Branch" (CB) the track designed for consumers -- and designed to use consumers as testers -- but won't be okayed for the CBB until some future date, most likely four months from now, or in late 2016. ( Microsoft's one CBB designation since last year's launch of Windows 10 was in mid-April, when, five months after 1511 appeared on the CB, the same code was approved for enterprises.) The once seemingly-rigid cadence of Windows 10 releases -- three a year, each separated by about four months -- has collapsed, so it will be difficult to forecast exactly how long 1607 will be supported. Microsoft intends to release two upgrades in 2017 , with 1607 the only one for 2016. With two slated for 2017, the second's designation for the CBB would mark the end of support for 1607. Depending on the timing of the pair of releases next year, 1607 will almost certainly be supported throughout 2017 at a minimum, and probably well be into 2018, perhaps as long as mid-year. (Assuming releases in the spring and fall of 2017, 1607 wouldn't see support end until the later winter or early spring of 2018.) As Kleynhans pointed out, that period -- 2017 and the first months of 2018 -- will be migration prime time for enterprises. "[1607] is the version for all of next year," he said, referring to the enterprise. "That's the version people will know. " But 1607 won't be the only version to be deployed by companies as they wend their way through the migration job. Because the support lifecycle of a particular edition, say 1607, is shorter than the average start-to-finish migration, some businesses will be required to start with one version, finish with another. According to a recent survey done by VMware, enterprise IT administrators and managers said it takes an average of 18 months to complete a Windows migration (and a majority of those polled said they expected Windows 10 to take the same amount of time as past upgrades). That means even if a company began deployment in April 2017 with 1607, it wouldn't finish with that same build because it would wrap up around the end of 2018, months after 1607 dropped off support. How that will work is unclear, as IT has not been forced to upgrade machines already on the newest OS at the same time it also migrated other PCs from an older edition. The last massive enterprise upgrade cycle was Windows 7, whose SP1 was the sole service pack (and so is still supported); by default, then, companies began and finished their move from XP to Windows 7 with SP1. Windows Vista, which admittedly gained little traction in the enterprise, had a pair of service packs; even so, the first received support for more than three years, from February 2008 to July 2011, enough time for a company, had it wanted to do so, to complete a full deployment.

Windows 10 review feedproxy.google.com 2016-08-05 09:57 Gregg Keizer www.computerworld.com

7 'Mayhem' takes first in DARPA's all-computer hacking challenge (1.03/3) In the first head-to-head hacking competition of autonomous computers, a system developed by a team of Pittsburgh-based researchers is the presumptive winner. Mayhem, a high- performance computer running an autonomous system, beat six other competing machines in the finals of DARPA’s Cyber Grand Challenge in Las Vegas on Thursday. Mayhem was developed by the ForAllSecure team from Pittsburgh. Results were still being verified, but the winning team, a startup with roots at Carnegie Mellon University, is set to be awarded the $2 million grand prize today. Members of the ForAllSecure team are the presumptive winners of the DARPA-sponsored Cyber Grand Challenge with their computer program called Mayhem. The winning system also is expected to be invited to compete against the world’s best human hackers at Defcon later today. It would be the first time a machine has played in a tournament at DefCon, long-running hacking conference. “I’m enormously gratified that we achieved [the Cyber Grand Challenge’s] primary goal, which was to provide clear proof of principle that machine- speed, scalable cyber defense is indeed possible,” said Mike Walker, DARPA program manager, in a statement. “I’m confident it will speed the day when networked attackers no longer have the inherent advantage they enjoy today.” During the 12-hour "capture the flag" tournament, the teams were scored on how well their systems "protected hosts, scanned the network for vulnerabilities and maintained the correct function of software. " Walker said the challenge has launched a revolution in software security. “In the same way that the Wright brothers’ first flight -- although it didn’t go very far -- launched a chain of events that quickly made the world a much smaller place, we now have seen for the first time autonomy involving the kind of reasoning that’s required for cyber defense,” he said. “That is a huge advance compared to where the cyber defense world was yesterday.” In Thursday’s competition, Xandra, a computer system designed by TechX, a team from Ithaca, N. Y. and the University of Virginia, took second place, winning $1 million. Mechanical Phish, a system designed by team Shellphish from the University of California, Santa Barbara, was the third-place winner and will take home $750,000. DARPA has been running the cyber challenge since 2013 in an effort to stimulate research into autonomous systems that can be used to protect the computer software that runs in nearly all devices of daily life, including cars, refrigerators, home security systems and coffee makers. With the Internet of Things steadily growing, more devices are connected to the Internet, requiring even more cybersecurity. Keeping all of that software secure has become an overwhelming scenario for humans acting alone. The answer, according to DARPA and some researchers, is to combine forces with smart systems. “I want to make sure that everyone can check the security of the software they’re using,” said David Brumley, CEO of ForAllSecure, in a video interview “I want to make sure that the person who buys a smart refrigerator knows it’s not going to be a new avenue for someone to steal their credit card numbers. That they can install a new app on their phone and they don’t have to worry about it stealing their contacts.” ForAllSecure’s system uses a two-pronged approach, combining two autonomous systems. One system generates deep paths in the software searching for flaws. A second system is a fast directed fuzzer, a technique for testing software that can generate proof that a flaw exists and then begin the patching process. Combining the two autonomous systems is more powerful than either technique is alone, according to ForAllSecure. “It’s a much faster way of searching through programs than by hand,” said Tyler Nighswander, a software engineer with ForAllSecure. “There is a lot of creativity and almost art in crafting exploits and doing that sort of thing, so the real solution is a two-pronged approach where you have computers and humans working together.” Brumley, however, doesn’t foresee computers, even autonomous systems, replacing people in all areas of cybersecurity. “I look at computers freeing us from mundane tasks,” he said. “You always want that human spark of creativity, and that’s something the computer will never have. I look at [the Cyber Grand Challenge] as upping the bar so we can focus more on those abstract concepts, as people, and let the computer worry about the details.”

‘Mayhem’ wins $2M first prize in DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge itworld.com 2016-08-05 08:49 Sharon Gaudin www.itnews.com

8 8 Two major Windows 10 updates scheduled for 2017 (1.03/3) It may come as no surprise, but Microsoft won't release another major update for Windows 10 in 2016. The good news is you can expect two big updates to Microsoft’s latest operating system in 2017. Microsoft let the information slip in a TechNet blog post published earlier in the week. “Windows 10, version 1607 is our third Windows 10 feature update released,” Microsoft said in the blog post. “Based on feedback from organizations moving to Windows 10, this will be our last feature update for 2016, with two additional feature updates expected in 2017.” The blog post appears to confirm reports from the Windows rumor mill about the timing of the next two updates for Windows 10. The first update, dubbed Redstone 2, is expected to roll out in early 2017 with the second, Redstone 3, landing in the summer or early fall, similar to the timing of the recently released Anniversary Update (previously known as Redstone 1). This schedule would put Microsoft back on a two updates per year schedule similar to the initial rollout of Windows 10, as Windows Central first pointed out. In 2015, Microsoft released Windows 10 (also known as Threshold) in July and then the November Update (dubbed Threshold 2) three months later. This time around, Redstone 2 is expected to roll out in the spring and then Redstone 3 should hit about four to six months later. Early builds of Redstone 2 are expected to roll out to Windows Insiders in the coming weeks. Windows 10 review feedproxy.google.com 2016-08-05 07:12 Ian Paul www.itnews.com

9 How Companies Can Protect Network, Apps From the Rio Olympics (1.02/3) For the next couple of weeks, more than 10,000 athletes from 194 countries will competing in the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and millions of people around the globe will be watching them. Many will be doing their watching online while working, putting enormous strains on their companies' networks and possibly hindering the performance of business applications. "Bosses may not like to hear it, but employees are aware of record-breaking swims and dazzling acrobatics happening, even as they work," Mason Coffman, content marketing manager for WAN optimization vendor Riverbed Technology, wrote in a post on the company blog. "And livestreams are just a click away. Every four years, network administrators are faced with a question: how will networks handle this surge in traffic? " In a survey in July of 403 IT professionals worldwide, Riverbed said most respondents had run into issues with network performance due to employees streaming high-profile events, and the vast majority of respondents said they will more closely monitor the performance of their networks and applications during the Olympics, which officially kicks off Aug. 5 with the opening ceremonies. This eWEEK slide show takes a look at some of the results of the survey, and recommended steps from Riverbed for alleviating strains on the network. Rio Olympics Has IT Managers Worried About Network Capacity informationweek.com 2016-08-05 19:04 Jeffrey Burt www.eweek.com

10 Rackspace ‘on brink’ of sale to private equity house – report (1.02/3) Rackspace is reportedly on the verge of becoming a privately owned entity, two years after its senior management abandoned plans to find a buyer for the managed cloud company. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the company is in “advanced” takeover talks with one or more private equity houses, which sources claim could result in a deal some time this week. News of the deal saw shares in the company initially rise by at least 18% before trading was suspended, prompting speculation about an imminent announcement on the company’s future. Rackspace appointed financial services firms Morgan Stanley and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosato in May 2014 to help it field a series of undisclosed merger and acquisition offers. An SEC filing at around that time confirmed that the company had been approached by multiple suitors interested in either partnering or acquiring it. But in September 2014, Rackspace confirmed it had called off its efforts to find a buyer, and was committed to remaining independent. “After a comprehensive review, the board decided to terminate M&A discussions,” the company said in a statement at the time . “Based on Rackspace’s reaccelerated revenue growth and its potential trajectory for the coming year, the board concluded the company is best positioned to maximise shareholder value.” This change in strategy was linked to Rackspace’s decision to expand away from its roots as an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider to become a purveyor of managed services, typically for enterprises with small IT teams that need help managing complex cloud environments. To date, this approach has seen Rackspace put aside its differences with former IaaS adversaries Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft to offer support services to their cloud platforms. Computer Weekly contacted Rackspace for comment on this story, but had not received a response at the time of publication. Kate Hanaghan, research director at analyst house TechMarketView, said in a note to its subscriber base that Rackspace was in a precarious position when it came to fighting off competitive threats. “Our concern for some time has been that Rackspace sits in the middle ground between the hyperscale providers on the one hand, and the established services providers on the other – having to fight off fierce competition from both,” said Hanaghan.

Reports: Acquisition Of Cloud Hosting Provider Rackspace Is Immiment - Page: 1 crn.com 2016-08-05 14:58 Datacentre Editor www.computerweekly.com

11 11 15 best laptops you can buy in 2016 (0.06/3) Once thought to be replaced by tablets, laptops are on the rise again thanks to Windows 10 's arrival, Nvidia's efficient Pascal graphics cards and fresh new Skylake processors from Intel. Between gaming laptops that hook up to liquid-coolers, thin and light Ultrabooks and incredibly affordable Chromebooks , laptops are more plentiful and diverse than ever. So much so that even Microsoft has gotten into the game with the Surface Book , the company's first ever laptop. With ample variety to choose from, picking the best laptop for your needs is more important than ever. Those who crave fast boot up times on a lightweight machine to carry might drool over an Ultrabook. Serious gamers will gravitate towards gaming laptops tailored to their processing and graphical needs. Meanwhile, those after flexibility might fancy a convertible laptop-tablet hybrid. It might seem overwhelming at first – what with all of the available choices – but we're here to help you find the best laptop for you. Believe us when we say that there is a perfect laptop out there for you. With this guide, you'll find the absolutely best machines available today. Dell's latest Ultrabook is a masterpiece ahead of the curve See more Dell XPS 13 deals The Dell XPS 13 is, bar none, the best laptop you can buy today. It features a revolutionary design that's astonishingly thin and light. Fitting a 13.3-inch screen into an 11-inch frame is no small feat; however, Dell has pulled off a miracle creating a nearly borderless Infinity display. It's a powerful and long lasting machine even by today's Ultrabook standards. The XPS 13 comes outfitted with Intel's latest Skylake processors plus lighting, quick storage and memory, all while coming in at a very affordable starting price. For these reasons, it easily takes the top slot as the best Ultrabook , the best Windows laptop and the best overall laptop. Better than the MacBook and at a fraction of the price See more Asus ZenBook UX305 deals If you're looking for a Windows alternative to Apple's latest rose-tinted MacBook, the Asus ZenBook UX305 might be more your speed. Though it looks like a MacBook clone from every angle, it's actually superior in almost every way. From its purple-tinged aluminum design to its sharp display and hearty helping of built-in storage space, the UX305 puts Windows back in style, fanless design, long battery life and all. And, while the low-cost is enticing, if you're shopping for something with a bit more horsepower (not to mention an even more compact design), look no further than the Asus ZenBook 3. One of the best looking and most powerful Chromebooks See more Toshiba Chromebook 2 deals If a sharp screen and fast machine is what you seek, invest in a Toshiba Chromebook 2. It packs a wonderfully colorful full HD screen and an almost overly capable Intel Core i3 processor. Though this particular model comes at a higher premium than other Chromebooks, there's the option of picking a lower-end Celeron model. Either way, this 13-inch laptop is one of the more attractive Chrome OS machines available today and it can run as fast as the overpowered Google Chromebook Pixel 2. Light and faster than ever See more 13-inch MacBook Air (early 2015) deals When you're looking for something with rock solid reliability, there's always the MacBook Air. Although the latest iteration sticks to its guns with a dated design and low-resolution screen, the Air isn't showing any signs of slowing down on the performance front. Thanks to a capable CPU, this thin and light machine can handle everything from simple web browsing to serious number crunching and even some light gaming. Sure the New MacBook is lighter and thinner, but it does not come with the Air's spread of full-sized ports nor a 13 hour battery life to last you though an entire day. Waiting for the MacBook Air 2016 upgrade? It may be right around the corner. Greatness doesn't need to break the bank See more Samsung Notebook 9 deals The Samsung Notebook 9 may not be the flashiest title on the list, but at $949 it does offer more bang for the buck than you'll see in most laptops. That's because unlike much of the competition now, it's an Ultrabook with a full-fledged Core i5 Skylake processor. That alone makes it effectively more powerful than a MacBook with a better screen resolution than a MacBook Air while still retaining a lower price point. On the downside, it's the battery life that takes a hit as a result. The ultimate Windows 10 hybrid laptop See more Surface Book deals If you're looking for a more traditional notebook, Microsoft knocked it out of the park with its first ever laptop, the Surface Book. Though it has a peculiar 3:2 aspect ratio and 13.5-inch screen that's outside of the norm for most Ultrabooks, it's one of the best designed convertible laptops ever created. As a standalone tablet, otherwise known as the Clipboard, it's the most powerful and thinnest Windows 10 computers in the world. Then docking the screen into the keyboard base affords it even more performance by way of a discrete GPU. Thin, powerful and delightfully chic See more HP Spectre deals One glance at the HP Spectre, and you'd think it belongs in a mansion. What you may be surprised to discover is that not only does it boast a premium appearance, but the HP Spectre is actually more powerful than the latest MacBook and for a lower price at that. From the beautifully designed gold hinge to the optional Intel Core i7 configuration to the trio of USB-C ports, you'll not only look like you have one of the most capable (not to mention future-proof) laptops around, but you actually will. Although it only boasts a 1080p screen , that criticism is trumped by a work of supreme industrial design. If there were ever a such thing as a MacBook killer, it would be called the HP Spectre – front and center, folks. A premium Chromebook that backflips on command See more Asus Chromebook Flip deals When most people think of Chromebooks, they might expect some cheap, plastic device that's only just good enough to get them through a day of surfing the web. Asus, on the other hand, offers the fully metal Chromebook Flip that doubles as a tablet just for the heck of it. The 10.1-inch, 2-in-1 Chromebook is an exceedingly light laptop that feels premium to the touch. Thanks its little known Rockchip processor, the Flip can outrun and outlast most other Chrome OS machines. Gorgeous, thin and light CPU: Intel Core m3 – m5 | Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 515 | RAM: 8GB | Screen: 12-inch, 2304 x 1,440 LED-backlit IPS display | Storage: 256GB – 512GB SSD See more MacBook deals Apple has updated its most attractive laptop yet with an Intel Skylake Core M processor. Still clocking in at 1.1GHz to start, the 2016 MacBook aims at those who don't need power as much as portability and pizazz. The stylish, aluminum unibody design and the Retina display are all back, too. Aside from a 3.5mm headphone jack, the only connector port remains USB-C, though the reversible interface has gained traction since last year's debut. If you're willing to lug cable adapters and take a performance hit in the name of stellar design, the brand new, appetizing Rose Gold finish might be just for you. A thoughtfully refined 2-in-1 convertible See more Lenovo Yoga 900 deals Whereas the Lenovo Yoga Pro 3 had a winning design and underwhelming performance, the Yoga 900 is the full package. By integrating more powerful Intel Core i-series processors and a larger battery, Lenovo's latest flagship convertible can stand toe-to-toe with most Ultrabooks and even Microsoft's latest Surface Book. All this extra power has only made the Yoga 900 slightly thicker and heavier, however, it still largely retains a very thin and flexible frame for folding back into tablet mode. And, for those looking for the thinnest and lightest convertible machine, Lenovo has made an even more compact Yoga 900S. Striking the perfect balance between a laptop and tablet See more HP Spectre x360 deals This beauty comes easily as one of our most recommended 2-in-1 laptops. It's one of the best looking and most powerful hybrid notebooks around, and the vibrant, bright display doesn't hurt either. Although it weighs nearly as much as a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro , its dimensions put it more in line with a MacBook Air. Plus, the fully metal body is a nice touch, even if it ends up making it a bit too heavy for prolonged tablet use. Users who want even more power and the best screen possible should look to the new Skylake model with an OLED screen. Robust and stunning, the MacBook Pro is as good as old reliable See more MacBook Pro 13-inch with Retina display (early 2015) deals The MacBook Pro is a tried and true road warrior. Whether you're a student, graphic designer, desk jockey, photographer, DJ or a simple everyday user, this is one of the most versatile and best laptops ever made. Along with delivering great performance and amazing battery life, this latest MacBook Pro comes with Apple's new fangled Force Touch trackpad giving you access to more gesture commands. It's an even more enticing option when you add up all the bundled freebies including office programs and software upgrades. If you can wait a few months, though, the rumor mill suggests a MacBook Pro 2016 revision is in the works. A budget Windows tablet filled to the gills with tech See more HP Spectre x2 deals While the Surface Pro 4 has established itself as one of the very best Windows 10 tablets in the market, the HP Spectre x2 is another standout device that comes at a very attractive price. This Intel Core M-powered 12- inch tablet is a smidge thinner while offering long battery life. Aesthetically, the Spectre x2 feels like an even more premium device with a solid metal body and stylish bar-shaped kickstand. It also comes jam packed with tech including a quadruple speakers and a total of three cameras – that said, if you're looking for the best stylus experience, the Surface Pro 4 still takes the cake. A fun, bright and affordable Chromebook See more HP Chromebook 14 deals With a 14-inch screen, this HP Chromebook isn't the smallest or lightest Chrome OS device out there. However, it strikes a good balance between ample screen space and portability. A top-notch keyboard and trackpad, coupled with a great screen, makes the Chromebook 14 a joy to write and browse the web on for very little money at all. On the other hand, if you're willing to shell out a bit more for an aluminum design and upgraded performance, HP's Chromebook 13 might be more your style. A 2-in-1 made for enterprise See more Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga deals Historically, Lenovo has made itself known for its premium class of business-grade laptops. That continues to be the case with the ThinkPad X1 Yoga, the performance-stacked 2-in-1 complete with a 2,560 x 1,440 (OLED optional) display that's admittedly difficult to look away from. Though the absence of USB-C is questionable, as is the inclusion of Windows 10 Home in favor of Pro, its 14-inch screen is uncommon enough to keep professionals enticed. Unfortunately, the battery life, which we recorded in our review as a mere 3 hours 29 minutes, is the most concerning factor here. Have you an outlet nearby, though, and that concern is easily mollified. The best VR headsets 2016 feedproxy.google.com

Best free iPad games 2016 feedproxy.google.com

The best PS4 deals in August 2016 feedproxy.google.com 2016-08-05 19:00 By Kevin feedproxy.google.com

12 Best iPad games: the top free and paid-for titles around (0.04/3) No-one predicted the meteoric rise of gaming on iOS, and we're not sure anyone knew what the iPad was for at all when it first appeared. However, Apple's tablet has become a very able gaming platform. With more screen space than the iPhone, games have the means to be more immersive. The iPad's therefore a perfect platform for adventure games, strategy titles and puzzlers. But, just like the iPhone, there are so many iPad games that it's tough to unearth the gems and avoid the dross. That's our mission here - to bring you the very best iPad games, mixing traditional fare with titles that could only have appeared on a capable and modern multi- touch device. One of the earliest 3D games was Battlezone, a tank warfare title at the time so realistic the US military commissioned a version from Atari to train gunners. iOS tribute Vector Tanks was subsequently gunned down by Atari lawyers, but its DNA survives in Tanks! - Seek & Destroy . Like Battlezone, Tanks pits you against an endless number of vector tanks, on a sparse battlefield. But this is a much faster, tougher game, with tilt-and- tap controls that put you more in mind of console racing games than a stodgy tank 'em up. The result is a relentlessly thrilling 3D shooter that marries the best of old-school smarts and modern mobile gaming. Having escaped from the primordial soup, bipedal Egz discover a hostile world. Everything's out to get them, from the hazardous environment to evil critters lurking in wait. Your goal is to make it to the end of 80 stages, without literally cracking up first. Egz looks superb: colorful, vibrant and cartoony. The controls are also great, with you simply pointing which way your Egz should head, setting the strength of a jump, and hoping for the best. But the best doesn't always come - the game can be quite punishing, not least due to an odd upgrade and XP model that requires quite a lot of grinding at times. But the game's charm, smart level design and tendency to fling new ideas your way makes it a tasty treat worth sticking with. Pinball games tend to either ape real-world tables or go full-on videogame, with highly animated content that would be impossible on a real table. INKS. tries something different, boasting a modern 'flat design' aesthetic, and having coloured targets on each table that emit an ink explosion when hit with the ball. Each of the dozens of tables therefore becomes a mix of canvas and puzzle as you try to hit targets while simultaneously creating a work of art. Neatly, as the ball rolls through ink splats, it creates paths across the table, which is visually appealing and also shows when your aim is off. Because each level is short — usually possible to complete in a minute or so — INKS. manages to be both approachable enough for newcomers and different enough for experts to get some enjoyment out of. These days, most footie games want to be an interactive facsimile of what you see on the telly. But Pixel Cup Soccer 16 harks back to breezier arcade fare of old, with a fast, fun take on the beautiful game. That's not to say there's a lack of nuance and depth - the game includes various modes (World Cup, Euros, and, brilliantly, the Women's World Cup), along with directional controls and varied passing types. Mostly, though, it's about silky smooth runs and blasting shots from the half-way line - the kind of football you imagine in your head but otherwise never get to see on a screen. Shove a stripped-back platform game into a washing machine and you might end up with Circa Infinity , the mutant offspring of Super Mario, Super Hexagon, and Tempest. This is a universe of spinning concentric circles, patrolled by tiny demons and flying beasties. You must heroically jump inside each circle, avoid your foes, and leap towards a tiny orb that veers and sways, providing access to the next bite-sized challenge when caught. Despite looking like it was dredged up from a 1980s home computer and having — horrors! — on-screen virtual buttons, Circa Infinity is hugely compelling. But take heed: you will have a major falling out with your thumbs when you misjudge which direction you should be heading in while upside down, your brain dizzy from traversing dozens of spinning discs. From its earliest moments, Momoka evokes a sense of wonder from the events happening beneath your fingertips. It recalls iOS classics Soosiz and Swordigo — the latter in Momoka's Metroidish side-on platform adventuring larks, and the former with its circular planetoids. Larger areas become lazily rolling, mesmerising environments boasting lovely low-poly art; occasionally, you leap between tiny asteroids, the screen lurching and spinning like a 2D Mario Galaxy on fast forward. The effect is striking, but Momoka is rewarding beyond interesting aesthetics. The story's simple quest unfolds at a brisk pace, with clear objectives encouraging exploration, gradually rewarding you with new abilities and places to visit. The price tag might put some people off, and there is perhaps the sense at times Momoka's a touch simplistic, but its creative level design and heart is something we need more of on iOS. From the developers of strange, minimal strategy title rymdkapsel comes equally strange, minimal puzzler Twofold inc.. At its heart, this is a match game, but it's one of those gloriously delicious brain-teasers that's out to break your mind by giving you a play experience akin to juggling. The aim is to clear 'requests' supplied by a goofy robot. You do so by dragging out lines of colored squares. But it's not quite so simple, because Twofold's convoluted rules are far more complex than the average puzzler; it therefore takes a long time to formulate strategies that'll keep you going beyond a couple of dozen rounds. Extended play reveals a nagging suspicion luck plays a bit too much of a part, but not to the point you won't immediately restart the second the little robot conks out due to your failure. The second we set eyes on Captain Cowboy , with its 'retro' flickering screen and caves full of boulders and diamonds, a grin plastered itself across our faces. It resembled a giant game of classic arcade title Boulder Dash. And that's more or less what you get, but with added bonus features. Your space cowboy scoots about, digging through dirt, collecting swag, and trying to avoid being crushed by boulders. On leaping into the void, he spins wildly until reaching safe ground, often on another of the many screens that compose the map, some of which include surprises — underwater caverns, space busses and a super-secret space station disco. Yes, you read that right. And, yes, we imagine the folks on the ISS are quite jealous right now. Just when you think there's nothing more auto-runners have to say, along comes a great game that freshens up the genre. In Chameleon Run , your blocky character belts along, leaping into the air, and switching colour to match the platforms below. Being the wrong colour on landing results in death. Falling down one of the many gaps results in death. Leaping over the goal like an idiot also results in death. This is not a kind game. Instead, Chameleon Run rewards perseverance, attention to detail, and a willingness to try new things. As you progress, skills are revealed that open up new pathways on previously tackled level, giving you a shot at beating each stage's three predefined challenges, thereby unlocking further, tougher levels. And for anyone who thinks they can breeze through, the last couple of stages are knowingly ridiculously tough to the point you'll be yelling at your thumbs for being rubbish when you fail yet again. There's not a lot of originality in King Rabbit , but it's one of those simple and endearing puzzle games that sucks you in and refuses to let go until you've worked your way through the entire thing. The premise is hackneyed — bunnies have been kidnapped, and a sole hero must save them. And the gameplay is familiar too, where you leap about a grid-like landscape, manipulating objects, avoiding hazards, finding keys, unlocking doors, and reaching a goal. But the execution is such that King Rabbit is immediately engaging, while new ideas keep coming as you work through the dozens of puzzles. Pleasingly, the game also increases the challenge so subtly that you barely notice — until you realise you've been figuring out a royal bunny's next moves into the wee small hours. Nintendo fans probably wonder why the big N hasn't yet brought the superb Advance Wars to iPad, but Warbits now scratches that particular itch. However, although Warbits is influenced by Nintendo's turn-based strategy title, it isn't a copy — the iOS game brings plenty of new thinking to the table and is very much optimised for the iPad. Working with 16 varied units, you conquer a series of battlefields by directing your troops, making careful note of your strengths and the enemy's relevant weaknesses. All the while, Warbits merrily has you and your opponent trading barbs, often about subjects such as whether tomatoes are fruit, because that's the kind of thing you'd go to war over. Finish the 20-mission campaign and you'll have a decent grasp of Warbits, and can then venture online to take on other human players across dozens of different maps. With superb visuals, enough new ideas over the game that inspired it, and a single one-off price-tag, Warbits is a must-buy for any iPad-owning strategy nut. Often, platform games have you reach new places by majestically leaping about and occasionally jumping on a cute enemy's head. Not so in Shadow Bug , where a deranged insect ninja speeds about by slashing foes with swords. To be fair, he's surrounded by horrors, and so perhaps stabbing someone in this nightmarish world is simply a way of saying hello. This means of getting around — just tap to move to an enemy and slice them up — infuses Shadow Bug with a Sonic-style manic pace, but the game is also about puzzle-like pathfinding. It's an interesting combination, although Shadow Bug is never afraid to shake things up, with one early set piece finding the slashy insect merrily bludgeoning its way across the landscape while driving a kind of ramshackle tank that squashes everything in its path. The idea behind Dreii is apparently to explore skill, logic and friendship, happening by way of you controlling strange flying creatures that pick up shapes using tethers. These shapes must be stacked to reach a light for a few seconds, after which point your floating avatar briefly celebrates before moving on to the next challenge. Even the earliest levels are quite engaging, due to the delicate controls and slightly bouncy physics. But Dreii revels in throwing curveballs. Before long, you find yourself faced with levels that require multiple people to complete — only you can barely communicate with other players who enter the room. Imagine assembling flatpack furniture with several friends, while everyone's gagged and wearing boxing gloves and a jet-pack and you're most of the way there. Here's another great example of how plenty of polish can transform even the simplest iOS game into a classic. Dashy Crashy pits you against an endless challenge, where you swipe to change lanes and increase your score as you overtake cars all heading in the same direction on a suspiciously straight road. We've seen it all before, but not quite like this. Dashy Crashy's visuals are dazzling — cartoonish vehicles, a stunning day/night cycle, and colourful, varied backdrops. But it's the game's sense of humor that cements a recommendation, with emoji speech balloons appearing above cars you overtake, and high-score attempts being derailed due to police chases and alien invasions scattering traffic across your intended path. Touchscreens have opened up many new ways to play games, but scribbling with a finger is perhaps the most natural. And that's essentially all you do in Magic Touch , which sounds pretty reductive - right up until you start playing. The premise is that you're a wizard, fending off invading nasties who all oddly use balloons to parachute towards their prize. Match the symbol on any balloon and it pops, potentially causing a hapless intruder to meet the ground rather more rapidly than intended. Initially, this is all very simple, but when dozens of balloons fill your field of vision, you'll be scrawling like crazy, desperately fending off the invasion to keep the wizard gainfully employed. Taking the most famous video game character of all and shoving him into an endless freemium title could have ended disastrously. Fortunately, Pac- Man 256 is by the people behind Crossy Road - and it's just as compelling. In Pac-Man 256, our rotund hero finds himself beyond the infamous level 256 glitch, which has become an all-consuming swarm of broken code that must be outrun. Pac-Man must therefore speed through the endless maze, munching dots, avoiding ghosts, and making use of power-ups dotted about the place. And there aren't just power pellets this time round - Pac-Man can fry ghosts with lasers, or implement stealth technology to move through his spectral foes as if they weren't even there. Very occasionally, free games appear that are so generous you wonder what the catch is. Cally's Caves 3 is rather Metroid, except the hero of the hour is a little girl who has pigtails, stupid parents who keep getting kidnapped, and a surprisingly large arsenal of deadly weapons. She leaps about, blasting enemies, and conquering bosses. Weapons are levelled up simply by shooting things with them, and the eight zones take some serious beating — although not as much as the legions of grunts you're shooting at. With its numbered sliding squares and soaring scores, there's more than a hint of Threes! about Imago. In truth, Threes! remains the better game, on the basis that it's more focussed, but Imago has plenty going for it. The idea is to merge pieces of the same size and colour, which when they get too big explode into smaller pieces that can be reused. The clever bit is each of these smaller pieces retains the score of the larger block. This means that with smart thinking, you can amass colossal scores that head into the billions. The game also includes daily challenges with different success criteria, to keep you on your toes. Having played Planet Quest , we imagine whoever was on naming duties didn't speak to the programmer. If they had, the game would be called Awesome Madcap Beam-Up One-Thumb Rhythm Action Insanity - or possibly something a bit shorter. Anyway, you're in a spaceship, prodding the screen to repeat beats you've just heard. Doing so beams up dancers on the planet's surface; get your timing a bit wrong and you merely beam-up their outfits; miss by a lot and you lose a life. To say this one's offbeat would be a terrible pun, but entirely accurate; it'd also be true to say this is the most fun rhythm action game on iPad — and it doesn't cost a penny. The iPad has plenty of fast, playable racing games, but it took an awfully long time for a decent kart racer to appear on the platform. That was Sega's Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing, and follow-up Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is even better. You race across land, sea and air, tracks dynamically shifting after each lap. It looks great, handles almost perfectly, and gives you loads to do. IAP does stink up the place a bit, notably if you want to quickly buy characters or burn through the game, but otherwise this is the best free racer this side of Asphalt 8. A veteran of the iOS puzzle scene, Drop7 remains one of the best of its kind on the platform. It's based around dropping numbered discs into a grid. If a disc's number matches that of any discs within its column or row, those discs all explode. Grey discs are dealt with by twice removing discs next to them, finally revealing their numbers. Three varied modes are on offer, each of which demands a different strategy, although success always requires serious brainpower and making the most of every drop. In Triple Town , you have to think many moves ahead to succeed. It's a match game where trios of things combine to make other things, thereby giving you more space on the board to evolve your town. For example, three bushes become a tree, and three trees become a hut. All the while, roaming bears and ninjas complicate matters, blocking squares on the board. At times surreal, Triple Town is also brain-bending and thoroughly addictive. Free moves slowly replenish, but you can also unlock unlimited moves via IAP. Traditional platform games often fare poorly on iPad, but Traps n' Gemstones bucks the trend. Its approach is resolutely old-school, from the on-screen controls to the Metroid-style gameplay that involves exploring a huge interconnected world, opening up new passageways by finding and correctly using objects. The theme, though, is more Indiana Jones. A little chap, armed with a whip and with a fedora on his head, leaps about a pyramid, grabs loot, and gives mummies and snakes a good whipping. Interestingly, the game simultaneously manages to appeal to casual and hardcore gamers. Progress doesn't reset, meaning you can keep getting killed but gradually work your way into the bowels of the pyramid. But your score reverts to zero when you come a cropper; getting into the thousands is therefore a big challenge for those who want to take it. There's a hint of classic iOS puzzler The Room about _PRISM , although this game propels the concept into a futuristic sci-fi setting. Each of the 13 puzzles finds you staring at a floating shape in a star-lit void. Close inspection reveals buttons, switches and levers. Manipulating these transforms the shape before your eyes, and you keep fiddling and delving deeper until a crystal is given up. It's a quite meditative experience, although it's also quite easy and fairly short. Still, the sense of discovery throughout is frequently enchanting, even if you do sometimes end up playing finger Twister to reach a number of switches, or spinning a shape multiple times for a lever you could have sworn was visible earlier. Love You to Bits has a heart as big as a thousand iPads. It's a tap-based adventure that finds a little space explorer trying to retrieve pieces of his android girlfriend that have been scattered across the galaxy. The mechanics are right out of classic point-and-click gaming, essentially having you amble about 2D locations, unearth items and then drop them in the right spot. But the game is so relentlessly creative and inventive with its environments — full of dazzling visuals, references to movies and other games, and increasingly clever mechanics and ideas — that you can't help but love it to bits yourself. The little monster at the heart of A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build , wants some friends, and so sets about making them from crisp snow covering the ground. But as the game's title states, making snowman is hard — largely because of strict rules governing the monster's universe. Snowmen must comprise precisely three balls of gradually decreasing size, and any snowball rolled in the snow quickly grows. A Good Snowman therefore becomes a series of brain-bending puzzles - part Soko-Ban, part Towers of Hanoi - as you figure out how to manipulate balls of snow to build icy friends for a monster to hug. You get the feeling creators of classic vertically scrolling shooters would sit in front of AirAttack 2 in a daze, dumbfounded at what's possible on modern home-computing devices. That's not down to the gameplay, though: like its predecessor, AirAttack 2 is a straightforward shooter - you're piloting a fighter in World War II, downing enemies while optionally yelling "tally ho" at an annoyingly loud volume. But this World War II is decidedly different from the one that occurred in our reality: Germans own limitless squadrons and building-sized tanks (versus the Allies, seemingly relying on a single nutcase in a plane to win the war). It's the jaw-dropping visuals that really dazzle, effortlessly displaying swarms of enemies to down, colossal bosses to defeat, and a destructible environment to take out your frustrations on. For the low price (not least given that there's no IAP whatsoever), it's an insane bargain. The first Badland combined the simplicity of one-thumb 'copter'/flappy games with the repeating hell of Limbo. It was a stunning, compelling title, pitting a little winged protagonist against all kinds of crazy ordeals in a forest that had clearly gone very wrong. We mention The Room and its sequel elsewhere in this list, but The Room Three is the best entry in the series yet. Again, this is a somewhat Myst-like game of exploration and puzzle-solving, figuring out how to escape your environment by utilising everything around you. But there's more freedom this time round, with multi-room locations, surreal and deeply strange moments that find you sucked into the very puzzles you're trying to solve, and the creeping menace of The Craftsman, a malevolent nutcase who initially leaves you locked in a dungeon, and then tasks you with freeing yourself from the confines of the remote island on which you're stranded. One to play in the dark, with rain pouring down outside - if you dare. This single-screen platformer initially resembles a tribute to arcade classics Bubble Bobble and Snow Bros., but Drop Wizard is a very different beast. It's part auto-runner, which might infuriate retro-gamers, but this proves to be a brilliant limitation in practice. Your little wizard never stops running, and emits a blast of magic each time he lands. You must therefore time leaps to blast roaming foes, and then boot the dazed creatures during a second pass. It's vibrant, fast-paced, engaging, and — since you only need to move left or right — nicely optimised for iPad play. Every release of Football Manager for iPad has found the series moving a little closer to the PC incarnation. Now, Football Manager Touch 2016 gives you something that marries the complexity and depth you'd expect from such a title with an interface suitable for a tablet. There are some flaws: long load times; a certain amount of fiddliness; a whiff of IAP lurking to 'boost your bank balance'. On the whole, though, this is more 'top of the league' than 'own goal'. Since it rebooted Robotron-style twin-stick blasting, the Geometry Wars series has been the go-to game for a session of duffing up hordes of neon ships. Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved takes the basic concept and wraps it around 3D shapes lurching and spinning in space. It disorients but brings a new dimension (pun intended) to the genre, and is one of the prettiest and noisiest games on the system. If you're armed with an iPad Pro, you even get a co-op mode, where two people play on the same screen. A murder mystery inside a rickety old PC, itself inside your iPad, Her Story is one of the most intriguing titles around. It plonks you in front of the L. O. G. I. C. Database, a creaky old system that returns snippets of police interviews in relation to search terms. Helpfully, you can only access five at once, even if there are many more results (the joys of 1990s interface design!), but this forces you to delve deeper. Before long, you'll be scribbling notes, eking out clues from every other sentence, and realising there's more to every mystery than meets the eye. One of the most beautiful games we've ever seen, Icycle: On Thin Ice also has a penchant for the surreal. It features naked hero Dennis, peddling through a strange and deadly post-apocalyptic frozen wonderland. Each level feels like a scene from a Gilliamesque animation, but on venturing further into madness, you'll note how tight the level design is — any failures are down to your fingers rather than the game. At the tail end of 2015, seven new locations arrived, so you could discover what happens at the end of the end of the world. Much in the same way Hitman GO reworked a much-loved franchise for mobile, Lara Croft GO transforms Tomb Raider into a dinky turn-based boardgame of sorts. It shouldn't work, but the result is wonderful — all minimal, breathtaking visuals, and smart puzzles that present a challenge but rarely stop you for too long in continuing your journey. Most amazingly, it feels like a proper Tomb Raider game, with moments of wonder, and palpable tension when you mull over whether your next move will send Lara tumbling into the abyss. Because of the nature of touchscreen controls, there's a tendency to slow things down on iOS. ALONE… throws such caution to the wind, flinging you along at Retina-searing speed as you try in vain to save a little ship hurtling through rocky caverns of doom. This is a game that's properly exciting, and where every narrow escape feels like a victory; that all you're doing is dragging a finger up and down, trying in vain to avoid the many projectiles sent your way, is testament to you not needing a gamepad and complex controls to create a game that genuinely thrills. It turns out the future will involve hoverboards, only it'll be robots piloting them. In Power Hover , all the humans are gone, but so too are the batteries that power your robot village. So you hop on your flying board and pursue a thief through 30 varied and visually stunning levels. Whether scything curved paths across a gorgeous sun-drenched sea or picking your way through a grey and dead human city, Power Hover will have you glued to the screen until you reach the end of the journey. And although it's initially tricky to get to grips with, you'll soon discover the board's floaty physics and controls are perfectly balanced. A love letter to trees. A game about the beauty and joy of cultivation. These aren't words that would usually scream 'amazing game'. But Prune is a unique and frequently remarkable experience. It starts simply, teaching you how to prune a tiny branch, so a plant can grow to reach the sunlight and blossom. Before long, you're responsible for cultivating huge trees that arc past poisonous floating orbs, dealing with fragile foliage in unforgiving cities, and coaxing unruly underground weeds towards their prize. If you've ever felt a bit angry at the end of a long day in the office, take solace in the fact you've never felt quite as miffed as the stars of The Executive. Stress levels have reached the point everyone's mutated into monsters. Fortunately, the CEO's remained cool-headed and can now become the karate-kicking superhero he always wanted to be. Cue: 120 hand-crafted levels where you dart about the place, kicking werewolves in the face, leaping between floors, and marvelling at the bewitching ridiculousness of it all. At some point, a total buffoon decreed that racing games should be dull and grey, on grey tracks, with grey controls. Gameloft's Asphalt series dispenses with such foolish notions, along with quite a bit of reality. Here, in Asphalt 8 , you zoom along at ludicrous speeds, drifting for miles through exciting city courses, occasionally being hurled into the air to perform stunts that absolutely aren't acceptable according to the car manufacturer's warranty. It's admittedly a bit grindy, but if you tire of zooming about the tracks in this game, there's no hope for you. Asphalt 8: Airborne At its core, Badland echoes copter-style games, in that you prod the screen to make your avatar fly. But the hazards and traps are devious and plentiful: imaginative and deadly contraptions in silhouette, ready to eliminate any passing creature. Your retaliation comes in cloning your flying monster, and figuring out how to manipulate the environment to bring as many clones home as possible. It's a tough challenge, but one where you can repeat bits time and again until you succeed. And if you tire of the existing levels, the game lets you create your own. Badland We've lost count of how many gem-swappers exist for iOS, but PopCap's Bejeweled has a long history, which brings a maturity that's reflected in this iPad release. The polished standard mode is present and correct, where you match three or more gems to make them explode and bring more into the well. 'Zen' then transforms this into a no-lose chill-out zone. Beyond that, there's the fast-paced 'Lightning', 'Diamond Mine' (dig into the ground), Butterflies (save insects from spider-ronch doom), and Poker (make 'hands' of gems). Bejeweled HD This fantastic platform puzzler stars a bug who's oddly averse to flying. Instead, he gets about 2D levels by rolling around in boxes full of platforms. Beyond Ynth HD hangs on a quest, but each level forms a devious test, where you must figure out precisely how to reach the end via careful use of boxes, switches and even environmental hazards. And for anyone wanting an even sterner test, cunningly placed jewels are there to find in each stage, requiring all kinds of trickery and box manipulation to reach. Beyond Ynth HD A pilot finds himself trapped inside a tiny area of space frequented by an alarming number of deadly asteroids. You must stave off death for as long as possible. Bit Pilot is the best of the iOS avoid 'em ups, with precise one- and two-thumb controls guiding your tiny ship, effortlessly dodging between rocky foes — until the inevitable collision. Beyond the basic and harder modes, you can try Supermassive, a kind of zoomed-out Rocky Horror Show, or thread your way through tiny temporary corridors in the claustrophobic and deadly Tunnels. Bit Pilot As much a warning about digital surveillance as a word-based puzzler, Blackbar is a unique and compelling iOS classic. The game comprises single screens of communications, many involving your friend who's gone to work in the city, which you soon learn is part of a worryingly oppressive society. Your job is to literally fill in the blanks, while becoming immersed in a stark dystopian reality that's fortunately still peppered with warmth, humour and humanity. Blackbar Blek is akin to shepherding semi-sentient calligraphy through a series of dexterity tests. Each sparse screen has one or more dots that need collecting, which is achieved by drawing a squiggle that's then set in motion. To say the game can be opaque is putting it lightly, but as a voyage of discovery, there are few touchscreen games that come close. Blek In what we assume is a totally accurate representation of what boffins in Geneva get up to, Boson X finds scientists sprinting inside colliders, running over energy panels and then discovering particles by leaping into the abyss. Initially, at least, said abyss is quite tricky to avoid; but learn the patterns in each collider and you'll have a fighting chance of success in this addictive mash-up of Super Hexagon, Tempest and Canabalt. Boson X Botanicula is another excellent adventure from the brains behind Machinarium, this time featuring a little group of tree creatures on a quest to save the last seed from their home, which is infested with parasites. Puzzles abound as you keep the seed safe while marvelling at the gorgeous environments. Although the point-and-click-style mechanics might be familiar, Botanicula is nonetheless a unique and joyful gaming experience. Botanicula CRUSH! is deceptive. At first, it appears to be little more than a collapse game, where you prod a coloured tile, only for the rest to collapse into the now empty space. But subtle changes to the formula elevate this title to greatness: the tiles wrap around, and each removal sees your pile jump towards a line of death. So even when tiles are moving at speed, you must carefully consider each tap. Some variation is provided by the three different modes (which affect block speed and surges), and power-ups, which blast away colors and blocks in specific ways you can take advantage of. Device 6 is first and foremost a story — a mystery into which protagonist Anna finds herself propelled. She awakes on an island, but where is she? How did she get there? Why can't she remember anything? The game fuses literature with adventuring, the very words forming corridors you travel along, integrated puzzles being dotted about for you to investigate. It's a truly inspiring experience, an imaginative, ambitious and brilliantly realised creation that showcases how iOS can be the home for something unique and wonderful. It's also extremely tough at times. Our advice: pay attention, jot down notes, and mull away from the screen if you get stuck. Eliss was the first game to truly take advantage of iOS's multi-touch capabilities, with you combining and tearing apart planets to fling into like- coloured and suitably-sized wormholes. This semi-sequel brings the original's levels into glorious Retina and adds a totally bonkers endless mode. Unique, challenging and fun, this is a game that defines the platform. First Strike bills itself as the fun side of nuclear war, but there's a sting in its tail. The game mixes Risk-like land-grabs, a Civ-style tech-tree, and defence akin to Missile Command, your missiles aiming to intercept incoming strikes. Sooner or later, though, you realise the only way to win is to go all-out, sacrificing territory and obliterating your opponents. Just like the classic Missile Command, First Strike remains a playable game, but it's one with a chilling message that comes through loud and clear - at least when it's not buried under radioactive crackles. First Strike Forget-Me-Not is like one of those ice creams you get with every kind of candy imaginable, but instead of sugary treats, the sprinkles here are all the best arcade games of old. There's Pac-Man dot-munching, Rogue dungeon-roaming, nods to Caterpillar, Wizard of Wor and more. It's a glorious, madcap neon-drenched slice of perfect arcade fare, deserving a lofty position in gaming's history alongside the more famous games that inspired it. Foget-Me-Not With almost limitless possibilities in videogames, it's amazing how many are drab grey and brown affairs. Frisbee Forever 2 (like its similarly impressive forerunner ) is therefore a breath of fresh air with its almost eye- searing vibrance. There's a kind of Nintendo vibe - a sense of fun that continues through to the gameplay, which is all about steering a frisbee left and right, collecting stars strewn along winding paths. And these are a world away from the parks you'd usually fling plastic discs about in - here, you're hurled along roller- coaster journeys through ancient ruins and gorgeous snowy hillsides. Frisbee Forever 2 It's great to see Square Enix do something entirely different with Hitman GO , rather than simply converting its free-roaming 3D game to touchscreens. Although still echoing the original series, this touchscreen title is presented as a board game of sorts, with turn-based actions against clockwork opposition. You must figure out your way to the prize, without getting knocked off (the board). It's an oddly adorable take on assassination, and one of the best iOS puzzlers. There's also extra replay value in the various challenges (such as grabbing a briefcase or not killing guards), each of which requires an alternate solution to be found. Hitman Go There are other famous swiping games on iOS — Cut the Rope and Fruit Ninja spring to mind — but Icebreaker has oodles more charm, loads more character and, importantly, better puzzles. The basics initially involve slicing chunks of ice, so frozen Vikings trapped within can be rescued in a boat. Over time, this animated, cartoon world continues to come alive under your fingers, as you learn to manipulate other objects - such as rope and slime - to get your helmeted chums home. Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage HD A roller-coaster ribbon of road winds through space, and your only aim is to stay on it and reach the highest-numbered gate. But Impossible Road is sneaky: the winding track is one you can leave and rejoin, if you've enough skill, 'cheating' your way to higher scores. It's like the distillation of Super Monkey Ball, Rainbow Road and queue-jumping, all bundled up in a stark, razor-sharp package. Impossible Road There is a hint of Lemmings in Kiwanuka , this sweet-natured action puzzler. You must guide a little tribe to freedom, using a magical staff to make bridges from the citizens themselves. They're left behind as you bolt for each level's exit, presumably thrilled at their assisting your escape, if less thrilled that they're now forever fused into an unused pathway across a yawning chasm. It's quite a short game, but one that leaves its mark, through a mix of superb visuals and enchanting gameplay. Who knew you could have such fun with a five-by-five grid of letters? In Letterpress , you play friends via Game Center, making words to colour lettered squares. Surround any and they're out of reach from your friend's tally. Cue: word-tug-o'-war, last-minute reversals of fortune, and arguments about whether 'qat' is a real word or not (it is). A boy awakens in hell, and must work his way through a deadly forest. Gruesome deaths and trial and error gradually lead to progress, as he forces his way deeper into the gloom and greater mystery. Originating on the Xbox, Limbo fares surprisingly well on iOS, with smartly designed controls that feel entirely at home on the iPad. But mostly it's Limbo's eerie beauty and intriguing environments that captivate, ensuring the game remains hypnotic throughout. Limbo A game that could have been called Reverse Pool For Show-Offs, Magnetic Billiards lacks pockets. Instead, the aim is to join like-coloured balls that cling together on colliding. Along the way, you get more points for trick shots and 'buzzing' other balls that must otherwise be avoided. 20 diverse tables are provided for free, and many more can be unlocked for $1.99/£1.49. In Monument Valley , you journey through delightful Escher-like landscapes, manipulating the very architecture to build impossible paths along which to explore. It's not the most challenging of games (nor does it have the most coherent of storylines), but each scene is a gorgeous and mesmerising bite-sized experience that showcases how important great craft is in the best iOS titles. Racing games are all very well, but too many aim for simulation rather than evoking the glorious feeling of speeding along like a maniac. Most Wanted absolutely nails the fun side of arcade racing, and is reminiscent of classic console title OutRun 2 in enabling you to drift effortlessly for miles. Add to that varied city streets on which to best rivals and avoid (or smash) the cops, and you've got a tremendous iOS racer. Need For Speed Most Wanted This superb arcade puzzler is at times microscopic and at others galactic in nature, as you use the power of physics and time to move your 'mote' about. Some levels in Osmos are primordial soup, the mote propelled by ejecting bits of itself, all the while aiming to absorb everything around it. Elsewhere, motes circle sun-like 'Attractors', and your challenge becomes one of understanding the intersecting trajectories of orbital paths. Osmos HD The iPhone's a bit small for pinball, but the larger iPad screen is perfect for a bit of ball-spanging. Pinball Arcade is the go-to app for realistic pinball, because it lovingly and accurately recreates a huge number of classic tables. Tales of the Arabian Nights is bundled for free, and the likes of Twilight Zone, Black Knight, Bride of PinBot and Star Trek: The Next Generation are available via in-app purchase. On exploring the various tables (you can demo all of them for free), it rapidly becomes apparent just how diverse and deep pinball games can be. Yes, we know there's a Plants vs. Zombies 2, but some dolt infected that with a pointless time-travel gimmick and a freemium business model. The charming, amusing, silly and sweet original remains where it's at. For the uninitiated, in Plants vs Zombies you repel zombies that march towards your house with the power of hostile plants. Only through careful plant placement and choosing the right ones for the job will your bRAAiinnZZZ remain in your head. Plants vs Zombies HD In Royal Revolt , the king is dead and his siblings have stolen his kingdom while the prince was at school. Unfortunately for them, he was studying magic and is now out for revenge. The game itself is a real-time-strategy effort with some seriously cute and well-animated graphics. There is, admittedly, some grinding if you want to reach later levels. But we found with some careful upgrading of your troops, you needn't dip into your wallet. (Do, though, avoid the not-great sequel.) Royal Revolt This sort-of-Tetris has you drop sets of coloured blocks into a well. Tactics are of paramount importance, since you can move only one block for each new line of junk that's introduced. Slydris therefore becomes an ongoing challenge, a deceptively deep slice of strategy, gravity, block management and combos. Beyond the standard Infinite mode, there's 'Zen' (never ends; no scores) and 'Survival' (ten seconds to drag blocks like crazy before a barrage of additional blocks are hurled your way). If you find catharsis in smashing things, Smash Hit will leave you in a totally blissed-out state. You float through the void, lobbing metal balls at glass objects, clearing a path and chaining collisions. Over time, the paths become increasingly complex, the camera begins to whirl, and the shots get very demanding, depleting your meagre resources. A single one-time 'premium' IAP upgrade exists should you want to start out on any sections of the journey you've managed to already reach. This fantastic word game starts off easy. You get a grid of letters and remove them by dragging out words. Your only foe in SpellTower is gravity, letters falling into empty space as completed words disappear. But then come new modes, with ferocious timers and numbered letters that won't vanish unless you craft long enough words. 'Puzzle' is first, adding a new row with each word made. Then Rush adds rows over time. The final option is Debate, enabling two players to battle it out over Bluetooth. A regimented game set in a world of microbes, Splice is all about arranging said microbes to fit within predefined outlines. Restrictions abound, based on binary trees, forcing you to think ahead regarding where to drop your microbes and when to splice them. Grasp the basic mechanics and the game opens up, but it never relinquishes its devious edge, later introducing freeform microbes, and those that grow and vaporise. Splice: Tree of Life Ah, Super Hexagon. We remember that first game, which must have lasted all of three seconds. Much like the next — and the next. But then we recognised patterns in the walls that closed in on our tiny ship, and learned to react and dodge. Then you threw increasingly tough difficulty levels at us, and we've been smitten ever since. That said, we suspect only if you're superhuman will you ever get to see the hallowed final screen that appears when you survive 60 seconds in every Super Hexagon mode. Super Hexagon The original Monsters Ate My Condo was like Jenga and a match-three game shoved into a blender with a massive dollop of crazy. Super Monsters Ate My Condo is a semi-sequel which takes a time-attack approach, shoe- horning the bizarre tower-building/floor-matching/monster-feeding into a tiny amount of time, breaking your brain in the process. Essentially, you aim to manage like-coloured apartments in a single-column tower, flinging unwanted floors into the maws of flanking beasts. Lob gems their way and they'll power-up in a suitably odd manner. Give them the wrong colour, and they'll have a massive tantrum, potentially destroying all your hard work. If you've often thought golf would be much better if it was played on Mars, or in a giant castle, or in dank caverns with glue-like surfaces, Super Stickman Golf 2 is the game for you. Its side-on charms echo Angry Birds in its artillery core, in the sense careful aiming is the order of the day. But this is a far smarter and more polished game, with some excellent and imaginative level design. It also boasts two equally brilliant but very different multiplayer modes: one-on-one asynchronous play and frantic multiplayer racing. Super Stickman Golf 2 Apple's mobile platform has become an unlikely home for traditional point- and-click adventures. Sword & Sworcery has long been a favourite, with its sense of mystery, palpable atmosphere, gorgeous pixel art and an evocative soundtrack. Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP There's something wonderfully old-school about The Room , in its Myst-like exploration and sense of mystery. But this is a truly touchscreen experience, with you investigating inexplicable boxes with seemingly infinite nooks and crannies, which unlock to present yet more secrets and routes to explore. An obscure narrative is woven throughout, along with plenty of scares. Devour it greedily, preferably at night, in a dark room, and then take on its more expansive sequel, The Room 2. And when you're done with that, there's The Room 3... The Room Threes! is all about matching numbered cards. 1s and 2s merge to make 3s, and then pairs of identical cards can subsequently be merged, doubling their face value. With each swipe, a new card enters the tiny grid, forcing you to carefully manage your growing collection and think many moves ahead. The ingenious mix of risk and reward makes it hugely frustrating when you're a fraction from an elusive 1536 card, but so addictive you'll immediately want another go. Trainyard is another devious puzzler that at first seems a cinch. Initially, you merely drag tracks to lead trains between stations of the same colour. But then rocks enter the fray, along with colour-mixing and train-splitting. Before you know it, you've 14 stations, seven trains, hazards aplenty and an aching brain from figuring out how to get all the trains home safely. If you manage to make it to the very end (and, believe us, the last few puzzles are insanely hard), you can then make your own levels, or download those crafted by other players. This sweet, endless title stars a bird who loves to fly but doesn't have the wings for it. Instead, she uses gravity, sliding down hills and then propelling herself into the air from the top of adjacent slopes. Meanwhile, in another mode, her offspring are happily racing, bounding over lakes, eager to earn the biggest fish from their mother. Whichever route you take, Tiny Wings is a vibrant, warm and friendly experience. Tiny Wings HD You can almost see the development process behind this one: "Hey, fingers look a bit like legs, so if we put a skateboard underneath…" And so arrived one of the finest iOS sports titles, with you using your fingers to roam urban locations and perform gnarly stunts. Admittedly, this game is tricky to master, but it's hugely rewarding when you do so, and video highlights can be shared with your friends. The game's also a great example of touchscreen-oriented innovation — Touchgrind Skate just wouldn't be the same with a traditional controller. Touchgrind Skate 2 Ever since cop-in-a-coma Rick awoke to find himself in a post-apocalyptic world filled with the undead, Walking Dead has captured the imagination of comic-book readers and TV viewers alike. The interactive version follows a new set of characters, but the threats facing them are no less terrifying. As with creator Telltale's other titles, Walking Dead comes across like a mash-up of comic strip and adventure, with palpable moments of tension, and a game experience that changes depending on your actions. The first part of the story is free, and you can then buy new episodes; if you survive, season 2 is also available. Walking Dead It didn't begin life on the iPad, but World of Goo certainly makes sense on it. A bewitching game of physics puzzles and bridge building, the title also has real heart at its core. The basics are disarmingly simple: use semi-sentient blobs to create structures that enable unused goo to access 'goo heaven' (by way of an industrial-looking pipe). But through powerful and frequently surreal imagery, haunting audio and the odd moment of poignancy, you find yourself actually caring about little blobs of goo, rather than merely storming through the game's many levels. World of Goo HD At the heart of Year Walk is something dark and horrifying. This daring game is a first-person adventure of sorts, but it presents itself as a kind of living picture book. You begin in a sparse forest, snow crunching underfoot. Gradually, a story is revealed that is unsettling, clever, distinctive and beautifully crafted — much like the game itself. You won't rest until the story's told, but getting to the end will mean facing many moments of horror in one of the iPad's most unmissable and original creations. Year Walk Pinball games tend to be divided into two camps. One aims for a kind of realism, aping real-world tables. The other takes a more arcade-oriented approach. Zen Pinball is somewhere in-between, marrying realistic physics with tables that come to life with animated 3D figures. Loads of tables are available via IAP, including some excellent Star Wars and Marvel efforts. But for free you get access to the bright and breezy Sorcerer's Lair, which, aside from some dodgy voice acting, is a hugely compelling and fast-paced table with plenty of missions and challenges to discover. Zen Pinball

Best free iPad games 2016 feedproxy.google.com 2016-08-05 15:02 By Craig feedproxy.google.com

13 HTC Vive vs Oculus Rift: which VR headset is better? (0.01/3) The VR revolution is finally here in 2016. Whether it actually qualifies as a revolution or not, the two biggest contenders arrived earlier this year in the form of the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. So then, the question remains: which one is better? In reality, that question is oversimplified. The answer depends on what type of immersive experiences you're looking to get sucked into, the controls you want to hold onto and the amount of cash you're willing to dispense. Tattooed dude with Oculus Rift Though it started as a small Kickstarter project, Oculus Rift now has some huge names backing it, such as legendary video game programmer (and co-creator of the original Doom titles) John Carmack. Plus, in 2014, the Oculus VR company was purchased by Facebook, which means there's a truly authoritative presence in the background keeping the Oculus platform intact. HTC Vive, on the other hand, comes from the minds of two notable tech companies, one known for its hardware and the other for software. HTC has created some of the most critically and commercially well-received smartphones and tablets, while Valve is a long-time ally of PC gaming fans with Steam, which is neatly packaged with the Vive in the form of Steam VR. Your considerably less tattooed author wearing HTC Vive They're both expensive, so you're likely only going to be able to afford one. To help you wrap your head around these VR headsets, here's our HTC Vive vs Oculus Rift comparison. Both successfully offer expansive video game worlds and out-of-body experiences within your living room, and that's because the technology backing them up is similar in a lot of cases. This is what you see, every which way you turn The all-important HTC Vive and Oculus Rift displays are really two OLED panels that combine for a 2160 x 1200 resolution. That means each eye has its own 1080 x 1200 resolution. With a 90Hz refresh rate on both headsets, this means there are 233 million pixels flying at your face every second. This makes for a grown-up VR experience vs the 60Hz Samsung Gear VR. HTC Vive and Oculus Rift also have a wider 110 degree field of view (measured diagonally). This causes the virtual reality world to feel as if it truly wraps around your head. Here, put this on. It'll change your world You're not going to be able to break free of the required computer, as both headsets have to be tethered to a powerful Windows machine with a number of cables in order to function. However, besides the 37 sensors in the Vive headset that provide fluid, seamless movement, there's also a front-facing camera that can make a virtual world of difference. HTC's camera allows for a Chaperone safety system, casting a blue outline on walls and objects when you get too close. You can even turn it on for a Matrix-like look at everything at once. What's more, third parties like Intel are designing additional camera add- ons for the Vive that allow for improved hand-tracking and real-time environment scanning to avoid walking into obstacles. And, with Valve having made its tracking tech royalty-free, more developers will be able to create similar accessories for the Vive. The HTC Vive camera has incredible potential Chaperone is a mind-blowing safety net that serves to foster room-scale VR within the 15 x 15ft tracking space allowed by Vive's two lighthouse base stations (which look like small speakers, but emit invisible lasers). Oculus Rift doesn't have a camera on the front of its headset for augmented reality vision, and its VR space is limited to 5ft x 11ft. But it does have 360- degree positional head tracking. Your gateway to other worlds is through a VR headset strapped to your noggin via adjustable velcro. It's the ski mask of a dystopian future with no clear visor, but you can see so much more. The Oculus Rift is a little more compact This is where the Oculus Rift vs HTC Vive differ the most, actually. While both are comfortable enough with face padding and are lightweight, there's definitely more heft to the Vive. Oculus Rift is a bit more refined looking with a compact design that amounts to a big, black brick sitting against your face. There are lightweight headphones that are thankfully removable. HTC Vive is bespeckled with 37 visible sensors, and while it's otherwise black like the Oculus, it is noticeably larger. It looks almost as if the Oculus headset has had a puffy allergic reaction. HTC Vive is noticeably larger, but it's not like you're seeing it from the outside And though I said Vive is lightweight, it's technically heavier at around 555g without headphones included. Oculus is 470g by comparison and throws in headphones. That bigger size and weight does have advantages: a lens distance knob moves the Vive lenses further and closer to your face. This is a helpful extra for people who wear glasses. Oculus Rift supports glasses, too, but the headsets doesn't have this handy adjustment knob. Neither VR headset requires a phone, like the Samsung Gear VR, but HTC Vive does connect to your phone via Bluetooth for answering calls and messages. You can really wear it all day. Stepping into virtual reality is surreal enough, but it really becomes a tangible world when you can reach out and seemingly feel the VR environment with controllers. This is one of two Oculus Touch controllers - but it's not out yet That deeper experience wasn't ready for March's Oculus Rift launch, but its Oculus Touch controller with a hand-confirming, half-moon shape are slated for later this year. "Oh, I'm never going to get the hang out this" was my reaction when I was briefed on the controls for Bullet Train. Seconds later, I was hit switches and picking up guns, then throwing them at enemies when they were spent. Oculus Touch needs to hurry up, however, because while Rift ships with a normal Xbox One gamepad, the HTC Vive comes with two unique-looking controllers with buttons and touchpads. The HTC Vive controllers look odd, but really put your hands in the game... today Wielding these Vive controllers puts my hands into the game virtually, and I've demoed the same with the Oculus Touch. It's just that one is here now and the other is not. Vive is copying the Oculus Rift's least popular feature - and doing it right feedproxy.google.com 2016-08-05 19:01 By Matt feedproxy.google.com

14 The best DualShock 4 deals in August 2016: find a cheap PS4 controller (0.01/3) The PlayStation and the DualShock controller have been best buds for most of the PlayStation brand's lifespan. Sony has changed little since the introduction of the dual analog design in 1997, instead pushing the iconic controller closer to perfection with each console generation. Over 40 million PlayStation 4 consoles have been sold so far, and most of them only came with one DualShock 4 controller. If you want to play local multiplayer games, you're going to need a second, third or even fourth pad. Having a spare to keep charged when the battery drains on another is super handy too. Don't bother looking on the high street for controller deals - seriously those prices are insane. Online is where the action's at and we've tracked down all cheap PS4 controller deals. We've picked out the best deals for the various different colors too for US and UK readers. Loading DualShock 4 deals... We've hand picked out a few more tempting deals for the various color variations below too. Prices correct at time of writing, naturally. If the black DualShock 4 price above goes up, Groupon are currently selling some colors for $49.99 .

The best PS4 deals in August 2016 feedproxy.google.com 2016-08-05 16:16 By Brendan feedproxy.google.com

15 ShoreTel to Review Its Options, Including a Possible Sale The UC vendor, which is shifting its efforts to the cloud is forming a committee that will take a look at all options, from a sale to partnerships. ShoreTel officials are forming a committee to explore the various options for the business communications company, which could include everything from selling all or parts of the company to joint ventures and partnerships. The company's board of directors has formed a strategic advisory committee that will advise the full board on the various options while ShoreTel has retained J. P. Morgan Securities as its financial advisor in the effort and Fenwick and West as its legal counsel. The review comes at a time when the company is pushing ahead with its efforts to become a larger provider of cloud-based unified communications (UC) offerings and the crowded global market is continuing to see a trend toward greater consolidation among vendors. On a conference call Aug. 4 to talk about the company's latest quarterly financial numbers, President and CEO Don Joos told analysts and journalists that ShoreTel is seeing rapid adoption of its cloud-based options and growing migration of its on- premises customers to the cloud, all of which is helping the company move from product revenue to hosted revenue. In addition, the trend in the business world toward moving to the cloud is opening up a vast array of opportunities to the company, Joos said. However, "despite the momentum we've built, the stock price is under pressure," he said. In addition, he said the market—which is led by Cisco Systems and Microsoft and includes a broad array of other players— continues to consolidate, most recently with the announced $2 billion acquisition of Polycom by private equity firm Siris Capital, which had outbid rival communications technology vendor Mitel. Given such trends in the industry, taking a look at the future makes sense, Joos said, adding that the company is "operating from a position of strength. " "As global demand for cloud communications increases and the world shifts towards cloud services, we are seeing more and larger opportunities," he said in a statement. "To continue to ensure we are well positioned to maximize the opportunity ahead of us, we believe this is the right time to review the options for the next phase of the company's growth. " Company officials cautioned that there's no guarantee that the review will result in a sale or any other specific strategic direction. There was no indication on a timetable for the review. For the latest financial quarter, ShoreTel generated $94.6 million in revenue, a slight uptick from the $94.2 million in the same period in 2015. In addition, the company lost $700,000 during the three months, compared with a gain of $4.7 million a year ago. However, Joos and other officials spoke about the momentum behind the company's shift from on-premises bookings to the cloud. Since rolling out its Connect offerings —a single common platform that can be used for on- premises, cloud and hybrid deployments—last year, the company has gained 5,500 cloud customers, the bulk of which were new customers won from competitors. The company now has about 231,000 customer seats, a 29 percent increase from the same period last year. But the company in April unveiled an on-premises-to-migration program for existing customers, and in the latest quarter, 11 percent of cloud bookings were from on-premises customers making the move to the cloud. In addition, the shift can be seen in the revenue breakdown. The company generated $34 million in the quarter, a 20 percent year-over-year increase, while product revenue of $41.7 million represented a 12 percent decline. The same trends can be seen for the full fiscal year 2016, and Joos said that by the December quarter, hosted revenue should overtake sales from on-premises products. In the current quarter, ShoreTel executives expect revenue in the range of $86 million to $92 million. The shift by enterprises toward cloud communications is driving rapid changes in the market as vendors work to rapidly build out their hybrid cloud capabilities. Among the most recent changes in the competitive space include Nokia buying Alcatel-Lucent, Siemens Enterprise Communications becoming Unify and then being bought by Atos, Avaya restructuring its leadership team and growing its services capabilities, and Lifesize moving aggressively to the cloud and spinning out of Logitech as an independent company. Mitel has been particularly aggressive, buying Aastra Technologies and Mavenir Systems to help grow its capabilities in cloud and mobile communications. However, Mitel was unsuccessful in buying ShoreTel in 2014 for $574 million when Shoretel officials and directors dismissed the offer as undervaluing the company, and has reached an agreement earlier this year to buy Polycom until Siris came in with a superior offer and Mitel withdrew its bid.

2016-08-05 23:12 Jeffrey Burt www.eweek.com

16 Intel Cites Overheating Risk in Recall of All Basis Peak Smartwatches Intel, Basis Peak, smartwatches, internet of things, wearables, BlackBerry, BlackBerry Hub+, productivity suite, Android 6.0, DTEK50, Android, smartphone, USB, Black Hat USA, HTML, IBM, IBM Research, Neuromorphic computing Latest Videos Sponsored Videos Researchers Develop Way to Unlock Smartphone With 2D Fingerprints DAILY VIDEO: University professor unlocks smartphone for law enforcement; Google initiates... Samsung Introduces Galaxy Note 7 Handset With Improved Stylus DAILY VIDEO: Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Phablet Debuts With Iris Scanning, Improved Stylus; HPE Creates... LG's Flagship V20 to Be First Smartphone to Ship With Android 7 Nougat DAILY VIDEO: LG's V20 will be the first smartphone to ship with Android 7.0 Nougat;... Equity Firms Looking Into Acquiring HPE: Reports DAILY VIDEO: Private Equity Firms Reportedly Want to Buy HPE or Its Software Units; IBM Launches... Oracle to Acquire NetSuite for $9.3B in Cloud Push DAILY VIDEO: Oracle will buy NetSuite for $9.3 billion in a cloud push; BlackBerry unveils a $299... NIST Declares Two-Factor Authentication Using SMS Texts Insecure DAILY VIDEO: NIST says SMS-based two-factor authentication isn't secure; the UK approves Amazon's... Microsoft Unveils Service for Helping Enterprises Move to Windows 10 IT Insiders Optimistic About Verizon-Yahoo's Future DAILY VIDEO: IT insiders project the future of Verizon-Yahoo; FCC's Wheeler urges... Apple Planning Larger iPhone 7, Market Chatter Suggests DAILY VIDEO: Latest iPhone 7 rumor suggests a new, larger model is possible; Samsung confirms fix for... French Regulators Says Microsoft Collects Too Much User Data DAILY VIDEO: French regulators accuse Microsoft of improper data use; Samsung denies Galaxy S7 Active... Intel Processors, Storage Enhancements Set New Dell Servers Apart Dell’s latest Intel-based PowerEdge servers bring new levels of operational efficiency and... Dell PowerEdge R630: Incredible Density Across a Range of Resources The Dell PowerEdge R630 is a mainstream 2S/1U rack server that delivers incredible density across a... Save on Operating Costs for Scale-Out Workloads With the introduction of the Dell PowerEdge FM 120x4, Dell and Intel are bringing to market a server... Dell PowerEdge R730xd: Storage Density for Clouds, Big Data and More The Dell PowerEdge R730xd, also based on Intel Xeon processors, is one of the world's densest... Dell PowerEdge T630: Versatility for ROBO Environments and More The Dell PowerEdge T630 is a mainstream 2S/5U rack-mount tower server with a versatile mix of... Introduction to the 13th Generation Dell PowerEdge Servers video Dell's latest generation of Intel-based PowerEdge servers has the power and flexibility to solve all... Meet Some of the 13th Generation Dell PowerEdge Servers video Dell’s latest Intel-based PowerEdge servers bring new levels of operational efficiency and... Management Features of the 13th Generation Dell PowerEdge Servers video Today's businesses need to innovate to compete. If your IT talent is spending too much time... Innovative Features in the 13th Generation Dell PowerEdge Servers video Dell PowerEdge servers powered by Intel processors include a number of innovative features designed... Virtualization, Convergence and Cloud with Dell PowerEdge Servers video Agility is a competitive edge that Dell's PowerEdge servers can deliver thanks to dense, storage... Read more about the stories in today's news: Intel Cites Overheating Issues in Recall of Basis Peak Smartwatches BlackBerry Hub+ Productivity Suite Now Available for Android Phones Black Hat: Do USB Keys Left in Parking Lots Get Picked Up? IBM Develops Artificial Neurons to Speed Up Cognitive Computing Today's topics include Intel’s recall of its Basic Peak smartwatches because of an overheating issue, the release of the Blackberry Hub+ productivity suite for Android smartphones, the results of a social experiment to see if people actually will plug random USB sticks they found on the ground into their PCs and IBM’s development of artificial neurons to speed up cognitive computing. Intel officials are recalling its Basis Peak smartwatches due to overheating issues that they say could blister or burn a user's skin. The chip maker issued the voluntary recall Aug. 3 after almost two months of trying unsuccessfully to develop a software solution to fix the problem. Now, officials are asking users to return their devices for a full refund. Intel, which has targeted the internet of things and wearable devices as key growth areas, has stopped supporting the smartwatches and will shut down all Basis Peak services Dec. 31, at which time people will no longer be able to access their data. "We are issuing this safety recall of the Basis Peak watch because the watch can overheat, which could result in burns or blisters on the skin surface," Josh Walden, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's New Technology Group, wrote in a recall alert. "It is important that you stop using your watch immediately and return it. " BlackBerry is now offering its BlackBerry Hub+ productivity suite as a 99 cents-a-month subscription offering to all users of smartphones running Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The BlackBerry Hub+ productivity suite, which is part of the company's BlackBerry 10 operating system, is already part of the company's Priv smartphones. It will be also be featured on the company's upcoming DTEK50 Android smartphone, which is scheduled to go on sale on Aug. 8. The move aims to get some of BlackBerry's most admired key applications in front of the eyes of more Android users so they can use some of the tools that make BlackBerry devices valuable to the company's shrinking, yet dedicated enterprise users. In the information security business, there is a longstanding myth that users will pick up and try to use random USB keys that can easily infect their machines. That's an urban legend that Elie Bursztein, anti-fraud and abuse research team lead at Google, put to the test and detailed in an amusing session at the Black Hat USA conference here. Rather than just randomly drop USB drives, Bursztein developed a whole process that involved placing 297 keys at various locations on the University of Illinois campus. On the sticks, Bursztein included a simple HTML file for tracking as well as a follow-up survey for victims so they can learn what they did wrong. The results showed there is considerable truth to the myth as 46 percent of the dropped keys "phoned home," according to Bursztein, meaning someone picked up the key, plugged it into a computer and clicked a link. IBM research scientists have advanced the company's effort to extend cognitive computing with a breakthrough that could lead to the development of "neuromorphic" computers. Neuromorphic computing, or brain-inspired computing, is the use of computing technology built to perform like the neuro-biological architectures in the human nervous system. A team of scientists at IBM Research in Zurich has developed technology that imitates the way neurons react, such as when a person touches something sharp or very hot. In a blog post on the new discovery, IBM research scientist Manuel Le Gallo said IBM has developed artificial neurons that can be used to detect patterns and discover correlations in big data.

2016-08-05 22:07 eWEEK Staff www.eweek.com

17 How Pegasystems Is Helping to Digitally Transform Companies Organizations across all industries increasingly are deploying digital initiatives to thrive in today's competitive market. But simply implementing quick-fix technology for these initiatives isn't enough to stand out and deliver differentiated customer experiences. Organizations need to adopt technology that enables them to gain customer insight and foster more human interactions. Savvy organizations look for solutions that allow them to apply historical data and context-based insight to meet customer needs, fulfill their promises and evolve quickly while embracing new strategies and ideas. At this year's Pegasystems user conference, Pegaworld 2016, thought leaders from some of the world's top organizations came together to discuss how they are working to solve some of the biggest and most complex customer service, marketing and sales engagement problems in their industries. The following organizations are using technology from Pegasystems to transform the way they operate and address new challenges and opportunities within their markets.

2016-08-05 21:07 Darryl K www.eweek.com

18 Keeping the Hacker Tracker Mobile App Secure VIDEO: How do you build an app that is secure enough for a hacker conference? LAS VEGAS—The DefCon hacker conference here at the Bally's and Paris Hotels is a massive affair with many rooms, events and workshops spread across multiple times and days. While there is a paper schedule, many hackers now rely on Hacker Tracker, which has become the de facto mobile app of the DefCon conference. The Hacker Tracker was developed by two volunteers, Whitney Champion, systems engineer at SPARC, and Seth Law, chief security officer at nVisium. Champion built the Android version of the app while Law built the iOS version. In a video interview at DefCon, Law provided details on how Hacker Tracker is built and the steps he and Champion have taken to keep it and hacker data secure. Making a mobile app safe is not a trivial task, and in fact, DefCon's sister conference, Black Hat, had to update its app this year after security firm Lookout identified multiple privacy risks. Hacker Tracker gets the information for DefCon by way a JSON (Javascript Object Notation) API call. "It takes quite a bit of effort to bring in all the different events and talks and make sure that they are up-to-date and proper," Law said. "So we have worked with the DefCon information booth to make sure the information is proper; then we created a JSON service that we pull the data from. " The JSON call is secured with HTTPS Certificate Pinning, a security mechanism that makes use of Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security {SSL/TLS) certificates that are "pinned" or specifically linked to a given certificate in an effort to limit the risk of a man-in-the-middle attack. "We keep it very simple so we don't have things like data leakage; the only call that is made is to the single API, but everything else happens on the device itself," Law explained. "There is a small database that is there and encrypted for the user that is actually using the app. " Watch the full video below. Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

2016-08-05 20:08 Sean Michael www.eweek.com

19 10 Smartwatches, Fitness Trackers Worth Checking Out Intel has sustained a major setback in the wearables market after revealing that its subsidiary Basis is recalling all of the Peak smartwatches that have been sold due to overheating risks that could cause blisters or burns. While the issue reportedly only affects a small number of Peaks, Intel says it will shut down all Basis Peak services by Dec. 31, at which time users will not be able to access their data. However, Basis isn't the first wearables company to issue a recall. In 2014, for instance, Fitbit issued a voluntary recall of its Force wearable after users complained of rashes. But these recalls shouldn't discourage people for checking out some of the current generation of wearables. Fitbit is in a class of more prominent wearable makers that also includes Pebble, Samsung, Jawbone and, yes, Apple that deliver high-quality products. This slide show covers some of the fitness trackers, smartwatches and other wearable types that are worth checking out, whether you are among some of the more intrepid Basis Peak owners looking to replace your recalled unit or you are just looking to buy your first wearable. Not all wearables are equally appealing, but each of the following devices has features that make it a useful device. Read on to learn more.

2016-08-05 20:08 Don Reisinger www.eweek.com

20 20 BlackBerry Flexes Patent Muscles, Sues Avaya The device maker, which is putting greater emphasis on software licensing, claims Avaya is infringing on eight patents in multiple products. BlackBerry CEO John Chen over the past several months has made software licensing a key part of his efforts to drive revenue in the struggling mobile device maker, saying he wants to better monetize the company's more than 38,000 patents. Now BlackBerry is suing Avaya, claiming the networking and communications technology provider has infringed on eight of its patents. According to a lawsuit filed in U. S. District Court in Texas late last month, Avaya is using BlackBerry technology in an array of its offerings in such product lines as unified communications (UC), network switches and routers, communications servers and client software, telepresence video conferencing systems, and software for mobile device communications. In the 115-page lawsuit , BlackBerry officials said that "Avaya infringes multiple BlackBerry patents by using, without authorization, BlackBerry's proprietary technology in a number of Avaya's commercial products and services. … By this action, BlackBerry seeks to put an end to Avaya's unlawful conduct. " Specifically, BlackBerry officials are claiming Avaya is infringing on eight patents that were issued between 1998 and 2011. They cover a range of capabilities, with two concerning what the company refers to "significance maps" for coding video data. Others touch on features for displaying messages, determining the location of mobile devices, decoding and compression of speech, call routing, cryptographic public keys, and wireless phones and PBX networks. BlackBerry officials reportedly contacted Avaya about the disputed patents in December 2015. Avaya officials have not commented on the lawsuit. The filing comes as BlackBerry officials continue to look for ways to shore up the financial picture of a company that at one time was a top-tier mobile phone maker. However, it has since been surpassed by Apple with its iPhone and other smartphone makers—such as Samsung—that run Google's Android mobile operating system. In early 2006—before Apple released its first iPhone—half of all smartphones sold were BlackBerry devices. Three years later, BlackBerry held just 20 percent of the global market. In recent years, BlackBerry officials have put a greater focus on the company's software capabilities. In the most recent financial quarter, BlackBerry generated $424 million, 39 percent of which came from software and services and 25 percent from service access fees. Thirty-six percent came from mobility solutions. The company also lost $670 million during the three months, more than the $238 million it lost in the previous quarter. During a conference call June 23 to discuss the financial results, Chen spoke about efforts to focus more on licensing its patents to smartphone and other device makers to help grow revenue. He talked about the move to create a software licensing program within the company's Mobility Solutions Business, an initiative that was officially launched Aug. 3. "A lot of the good stuff that we do in devices like the BlackBerry Hub, some of our antenna technology, power management technology and the software, the list goes on. … I'm willing to license to other OEMs, phone manufacturers, device manufacturers, even equipment people," Chen said, according to a transcript on Seeking Alpha . However, he pushed back at the idea that BlackBerry could shed its mobile device business while growing the software licensing efforts. "I really, really believe that we could make money out of … our device business," Chen said, adding that the software and licensing efforts were created to augment the device unit. "So let's see how we could develop this. As I told everybody, I think within a couple of quarters we will be making profit in the whole Mobility Solution Group. " That determination to continue building devices was evidenced by the launch last week of the DTEK50 , a highly secure touch-screen Android smartphone that doesn't include BlackBerry's well-known QWERTY keyboard. It's the company's second Android phone, and it will go on sale Aug. 8 for $299.

2016-08-05 20:07 Jeffrey Burt www.eweek.com

21 Samsung's Stylus-Equipped Galaxy Note 7 Gets Security Improvements Samsung has unveiled its Galaxy Note 7, a stylus-equipped smartphone with enterprise security features and a myriad of updates—from an all-new iris scanner to improved Samsung Notes productivity app integration and more. The Note 7 also gets a much- improved S Pen stylus, a first- ever "Secure Folder" feature and other updates aimed at making users more productive and creative with the device. Compared with the Note 5 it replaces, the Note 7 is slimmer and more rounded than its counterpart, which was released in August 2015. The Note 7, which takes many of its features from the company's flagship S7 and S7 Edge smartphones, is available for preorder starting Aug. 3 and will be available for sale in the U. S. on Aug. 19 through AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, U. S. Cellular and Verizon Wireless. Prices have not yet been announced by Samsung, but T-Mobile lists the device for $849.99. The handset, which runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, has a 5.7-inch quad HD display, an octa-core processor and much more. Peruse this eWEEK slide show for more details about the Galaxy Note 7.

2016-08-05 20:07 Todd R www.eweek.com

22 Id Software doesn’t know yet if Quake Champions will be free-to-play At QuakeCon yesterday, Bethesda revealed new gameplay footage for Prey and Dishonored 2 to a packed house in Dallas— both exciting, especially because we want to turn into a coffee mug —but for FPS fans Quake Champions was the highlight of the show. While it sounds like there’s lots more development to be done on the game—even the business model is still up in the air—id Software head Tim Willits is in a very good mood. As head of the legendary Dallas-based developer, Willits is always a celebrity in the halls at QuakeCon. This year, though, he has a special energy. Everywhere he goes, fans shout their love of Doom (which just got some new DLC ) and their congratulations. For his part, Willits seems to be keeping humble. Doom, formerly Doom 4, had a publicly troubled development and some false starts, so its critical and commercial success must have come as some relief. And that's good news for Quake. Willits tells PC Gamer that Doom’s success has given id momentum and confidence in its ability to reimagine its ‘90s classics. “Things have never been better,” says Willits. “It is amazing —Doom was so awesome that it made making Quake way easier. I mean, there’s just like a lovefest at the studio right now. "For instance, with Doom the studio really hit on the core fundamentals about what people enjoyed about the franchise. So with Quake we want to keep the scope tight; the focus tight—that’s why it’s PC only.” Doom was so awesome that it made making Quake way easier. According to Willits, the idea that would turn into Quake Champions began as an attempt to evolve id’s long-running arena shooter, Quake Live. “I actually registered the domain QuakeChampions.com myself in 2013!” He laughs. After a lot of experimentation and prototyping, id realized that with new technology, the idea could stand on its own. It’s not 2013 anymore, though, and Quake Champions is going to have to compete with Overwatch and Team Fortress 2. But that hasn't stopped id from focusing on the things that made Quake great in the ‘90s: high speed movement, reflex shooting, and making powerful weapons only available as pick-ups in the heat of combat. Unlike other shooters with unique characters, the combatants in Quake Champions will all be fairly similar and armed with the same weapons. Some variations exist: Anarchy, a character on a hoverboard, is even faster than the already speedy Quake characters at the expense of armor and health. Sorlag, a large humanoid lizard, has a area-denial acid spit attack that can be used to protect power-ups and weapons from falling into enemy hands. But Willits insists the characters just add a layer of complexity and strategy to a balanced core game. “You can still do everything [as different characters],” he says. “You can still run around and rocket jump and shoot— the champions don’t change how you fundamentally play … people play differently. Some people bunny hop, some people don’t. [When creating champions], we were kind of focused on what people do.” When asked if Quake Champions would be free-to-play or an up-front retail purchase, Willits confesses that the studio is still wrestling with the issue. “I can definitely say that is a really hard problem, and so for us we’re trying to figure out exactly what people want more of, and how they perceive it,” says Willits. “And I’m not even trying to be cagey! It’s not like we know and just aren’t trying to tell anybody, we don’t know and we’re still trying to figure this out.” Quake Champions is scheduled to enter closed beta testing sometime next year.

2016-08-05 19:15 By www.pcgamer.com

23 10 best travel hacks to solve common road warrior woes It feels a bit disingenuous to say travel is a pain these days, especially when we can flit across to the other side of the world in less time than it takes the postal service to deliver a letter across town. Still, modern travel brings its own set of challenges, from finding an outlet our chargers fit into to running out of battery life as we snap selfies from parts unknown. We at TechRadar are a globetrotting bunch and we share these struggles, but fortunately we know a bit about integrating the finer things about modern technology into our daily lives. We've compiled some of the best tech solutions to soothe common road warrior woes below. Credit: Leif Johnson | TechRadar Spending time learning the dominant language of wherever you're visiting is always the best approach, but that's not always practical. Even if you dedicate years to studying a language, you still might find yourself in places where people think you're babbling gibberish rather than asking where the train station is located. Reading a foreign language can be even more difficult; we can't count the times we've tried to navigate through cities with street signs we simply couldn't read. If you have time ahead of your trip, pick up the DuoLingo app to learn the basics of a language you're likely to hear and read at your destination. Barring that, Google Translate will usually get saying what you need to say. Simply download the language you'll need to the app ahead of time, and you'll be able to translate in real-time, even without a Wi-Fi connection. But by far Google Translate's best feature is its ability to translate visual text, like signage, in real-time by holding up your phone's camera to whatever it is you want to read. It's not 100% perfect, but most of the time it'll show what the text says as if by magic. When taking in the sights of a spot you're visiting, it's often easy to lose sight of what's going on around you. In those moments, careful pickpockets can rob you of your cash, cards, and passports while you're still trying to count gargoyles on Notre Dame Cathedral. Sometimes these larcenists don't even bother with subtlety and just slash your bags open with a knife. To lessen the chances of such mishaps, take along these items. Carrying a backpack of some sort usually pegs you as a tourist, but sometimes you can't avoid it. In those moments, take the Pacsafe Venturesafe 25L GII Anti-Theft Backpack with you. Lightweight and tough, it's made from a fabric containing a wire mesh to avoid slashes and sports pockets with RFID blocking material to prevent data from credit cards and key cards from getting stolen with scanners. If you want to keep your smaller valuables even closer, though, consider picking up the Eagle Creek Undercover Hidden Pocket. Just stuff it full with your wallet and cards, loop the nylon straps over your belt, and slip it inside the waistband on your pants or shorts. Airplanes are stunning crafts that surely count as one of the greatest technical achievements of humankind. Unfortunately, they're also very loud. And we're not just talking about the constant hum of the engines themselves; there's also the screaming of babies to contend with, the much-too-loud conversation about Game of Thrones two seats over, and the snoring of the man next to you. If you don't mind forking out some cash, pick up Bose's QuietComfort 35 Noise Cancelling Headphones. Bose boasts some of the finest noise cancellation technology there is, and the headphones work to make quiet sounds even quieter and music sound better. It's the best way to drown out the sounds of what's going on around you. Too pricy? At the other end of the spectrum are the extremely comfy Howard Leight earplugs by Honeywell Laser Lite, which you can buy in a bag of 200 for just $21 on Amazon. Just smush them to a size that fits in your ear, plug them in and enjoy their superb noise reduction rating of 32 decibels. Technology has brought a universality to the human experience in a way people probably couldn't have imagined even a hundred years ago. But even though you can usually find an iPhone as easily in Nicaragua as in the Netherlands, you won't have as easy of a time plugging it into a wall socket to recharge it. Countries around the world still have a dizzying variety of electrical sockets, which can wreak havoc on your sanity when you just need to juice up for a bit. You could hunt down a specific adapter for the country you're going to, which is always the safest best. But for those trips when you don't have time to research the type of adapter you'll need or buy it, you should always bring along the Kikkerland Universal Travel Adapter. Flat and sleek, it barely takes up any room in your bag, and you can rearrange its various parts to fit sockets in around 150 countries. The catch is that its design means it doesn't fit the three-pronged sockets of Switzerland, but that's a common issue with many universal adapters. Even if you've managed to outsmart pickpockets, there's still a chance you could end up losing your stuff. You might leave one of your smaller bags at that charming Tuscan cafe, or you might freak out thinking someone stole your other bag when, in reality, it simply slipped behind the headboard of your hotel bed. Consider taking along The Tile. A $25 Bluetooth tracking device with a lifespan of around a year, The Tile transmits signals you can track with your phone from up to 100 feet away, and you can make it play a sound from your phone to help pinpoint its location. On the home front, it's best known for helping people keep track of keyrings they tend to lose, but abroad it can be a handy way of tracking missing bags. Unfortunately, beyond 100 feet it has to rely on other Tile users who are within 100 feet of it to pick up the signal, so your chances of finding your stuff diminishes the farther away you - or your stuff - gets. Most hotels have at least a decent array of channels to choose from, but there are the times when you just have to catch the latest episode of your favorite show, if only to make you feel a little closer to home. In most hotels, however, that's not going to happen without some help. To up your entertainment game while you're traveling, bring along a Google Chromecast. Just be prepared to undertake some extra legwork. Owing to the way most hotels require a splash page to log into the the local Wi-Fi, you'll have a hard time getting it to work if you just plug it into the TV. In many hotels, you can ask the folks at the front desk to whitelist the device for you, but that can be awkward. If you want to be self-sufficient, bring along TP- LINK's N300 wireless Wi-Fi mini-router, which you can plug into the hotel's ethernet connection (if it has one) and pair your Chromecast with. After all that, it might be better to stick with the local programming. In the last couple of years, smartphones have gone from being fancy conveniences to essential tools for modern life. Unfortunately, whether it's because you're walking around trying to find a landmark with Google Maps or you're hunting digital critters with Pokémon Go, your battery's going to run down quickly when you're on the go. Keep your battery chugging along with Anker's 20000mAh Portable Charger. It can charge devices like the iPhone 6S up to seven times, and it comes with a nifty travel bag and micro USB cable that can charge many other devices, too. If you're going especially far off the grid, it might not be a bad idea to bring two of them. Eventually, of course, the pack itself is going to run out of juice, so pick up Anker's 24W Dual USB Wall Charger as well. Image credit: Christian de Looper | TechRadar International data plans are becoming a bit more reasonable, but they're typically so high that many travelers just stick to Wi-Fi on international trips and spend their time hunting for elusive signals. Even calling home can be a pain thanks to frightening roaming fees. It's no fun burning through your travel budget just because you wanted to touch base with your loved ones. Generally, Wi-Fi is becoming common enough that it's not too hard to find in many cities of the world, and in most cases a Wi-Fi-compatible phone app, like Google Voice or Skype, will serve you fine, provided you fill the account with some cash. But, if you want an experience that's more akin to using your smartphone at home, pick up KeepGo and KnowRoaming. KeepGo is a data SIM card that you switch out with your regular SIM card when in another country. It costs just $59 and comes with 1GB of data - you'll need to buy data when you want more - and you can easily switch it out with the cards on most phones. KnowRoaming works the same way for phone calls, and costs just $30, though you can refill it up it as you go. You can also catch up with ChatSim Unlimited, a global SIM card that connects all your favorite chat apps, including WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook Messenger. It'll connect your phone to over 250 operators in over 150 countries, allowing you to stay in touch no matter where you roam. It's recommended you block data usage for apps running in the background so you don't run up charges on them as well. If you don't mind connecting over the web and are a UK resident, try the Love2surf international SIM card. You'll get internet access in over 114 countries without incurring data roaming fees. Starting at £7.99 for 100MB in Europe, you can up your purchase to 1GB in Europe for £32.99 on Amazon. Adding more countries costs more, but it's a relatively small price to pay to stay in touch and not rack up a huge bill. So, you spent too much time at the last meeting or you got stuck in traffic, and now your flight's only a few minutes from taking off. Suddenly you get up to the security line and fish around for your boarding pass, and it's not there! Most airlines offer digital boarding passes with QR codes on them today, so be sure to download those on your phone when you check in remotely. If you're worried the airport you're visiting won't have adequate Wi-Fi, then by all means, screenshot it and save it to your photos folder. Mobile boarding passes always seem to take a couple more seconds to work at the scanner for some reason, which might irritate the guy behind you huffing to get to his seat, but the convenience is hard to beat. As a bonus, the boarding pass contains information about your gate and time of departure, so it's always nice to have that on hand. Winging it is always fun when you're traveling, but sometimes it just doesn't do. You need ready access to important information you've copied down like confirmation numbers, photos of important documents, appointment times and addresses, or maybe even just a few interesting facts about the place you're visiting. You may have digitally researched it all, but now that you're on the ground, you find there's no Wi-Fi around to access any of it. Sure, Evernote is probably the best known of the mobile organization apps, but the problem is that you have to pay for a premium account. But that's not a problem with Microsoft's OneNote app, which lets you access all your notes offline regardless of where you are. The interface isn't as clean, but it has some features Evernote doesn't have, such as the ability to take video annotations to notes and the super impressive skill of rendering notes written with a stylus into plain text.

2016-08-05 19:03 By Leif feedproxy.google.com

24 Master Gul'dan in Heroes of the Storm Fresh out of Azeroth in pursuit of his eternal frenemy Medivh , Gul’dan has entered Heroes of the Storm. Bringing Fel magic along with him, the corrupted orc warlock aims to immolate everything in his path. Apparently Fel magic isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, as Heroes of the Storm’s latest hero failed to set the game alight at launch. After a recent patch, however, it looks like Gul’dan has finally found his niche: a spellcasting assassin that deals damage with a constant barrage of abilities rather than nuking enemy carries. Let’s take a look at those abilities. Those who know all about World of Warcraft’s warlocks will know exactly what this ability does. Gul’dan doesn’t regenerate mana normally, and instead sacrifices some health in return for mana. Managing these two pools of resources is the trickiest part of playing Gul’dan: knowing when to tap for mana, and when to run your mana dry in order to maintain a high health pool. Gul’dan’s bread and butter ability is Fel Flame, and it’s relatively simply. He fires flames in a cone. Where it differs, though, is in its short 1.5 second cooldown. Gul’dan can spam this ability to whittle down opponents or clear minion waves with ease. It’s got some range, too: it can hit turrets without them retaliating, making him a strong pusher early on. To combat the need to constantly sacrifice his health, Gul’dan’s able to top up his pool with a nice glug of his opponent’s life force. He channels on an enemy unit for up to 3 seconds, dealing damage and healing himself. This works on both heroes and minions, but not structures. You’re not going to get much health out of a few bricks, after all. Reminiscent of Gall’s Dread Orb, Gul’dan causes three zones, one after another, to explode with shadow energy, dealing damage over time to anyone caught in it. This ability can do huge damage if it hits an enemy with all three explosions, and is best used if they’re running away, as this is the easiest way to hit an opponent with each successive blast. Gul’dan’s R abilities are both spectacular. Horrify, his more commonly picked ultimate, introduces a new status effect to Heroes of the Storm. All enemies in the target area suffer fear, causing them to run away from the centre of the area while being hit by some burst damage. This can be used to cause chaos or to catch out an enemy. Casting Horrify in front of a fleeing enemy can cause them to run back into your team. Similarly, an exceptional Gul’dan player will be able to single out opponents in a group: causing most of the enemy team to flee, while one is forced to run into your allies. Rain of Destruction, on the other hand, is an unreliable monster. Over seven seconds, meteors dealing huge damage will rain down on a target area, with Gul’dan channeling throughout the duration. The meteors themselves do huge damage, but land randomly. You might get lucky, and they could fall in your favour, or you might see the meteors miss everyone. It’s all down to luck. Because of this, Ruinous Affliction is the most reliable choice. On top of giving a little burst, Ruinous Affliction’s bonus damage works on structures, that’s a lot of easy damage if you just hit three times. Position the first explosion on the edge of a fort and watch its health drop. It’s important to know how much mana your abilities and combos will drain. It partly depends on your talent choices—as Improved Life Tap and Chaotic Energy mix things up—and levels, but a typical rule is that roughly two abilities will cost a similar amount to the mana Life Tap restores for most of the game. Get a feeling for it, though, and start working out the right sort of combos for your playstyle. A typical combo you might use if you’re in a safe spot would be Q, E, Life Tap, Q, W, Q, Life Tap. This lets you put out damage, give Gul’dan’s health a quick top up, and finish off with a full mana pool to pump out some Fel Flames until Corruption and Drain Life are back off cooldown. There’s no one best combo, though: being able to string abilities together on the fly is a necessity. The final tip is to orbwalk with Gul’dan: a term originating in DotA, it originally referred to walking in between basic attacks when playing as a ranged carry. With Gul’dan, it refers to walking in between each cast of Fel Flame. Never just stand still while waiting for cooldowns, always reposition. Fel Flame has a large range, so do your best to hit enemies with the tip. Getting this constant movement down, as well as weaving combos of abilities together on the fly, is why Gul’dan is so challenging. There’s a lot to keep in mind, and the best advice is to practice. Knowing when to Life Tap should be second nature, and when it is, you’ll be able to use the Fel to conquer the Nexus. Dragon Shire guide Garden of Terror guide Cursed Hollow guide Blackheart’s Bay guide Sky Temple guide Tomb of the Spider Queen guide Battlefield of Eternity guide Infernal Shrine guide Towers of Doom guide Chromie guide Medivh guide

2016-08-05 19:00 By www.pcgamer.com

25 PS4.5 NEO release date, news and rumors: all the latest on Sony's PlayStation 4 upgrade The PlayStation 4.5 (or NEO as it's been codenamed) is a pretty unique beast. Mid- generation console hardware refreshes are nothing new. The first PlayStation had the PSOne refresh, and both the PS2 and PS3 had slim versions that came out a couple of years after the initial console. The PS4.5 is a little different from what we've seen in the past. Instead of just slimming down the console and maybe using some more power- efficient components, Sony is making some substantial upgrades to the hardware itself. These upgrades will mean that the PS4.5 will be Sony's first 4K console, but beyond that details are a little more scarce. For example, we don't yet know when the console is due to release. Most rumors we've seen have indicated that it should arrive in early-2017, but without an official announcement from Sony that date isn't set in stone. The date of the console's announcement is another big unknown for us. Previously we'd expected it to be announced at this year's Paris Games Week, but now there are reports that it might instead see a reveal at the Tokyo Game Show. There are also still a lot of unanswered questions about how games will work with the system. Will we have to re-buy our existing PS4 games if we want to enjoy them in 4K resolutions, or will there be some kind of upgrade program? These are questions that Sony will have to provide some decisive answers to if they're to avoid the feeling that they're ripping off fans. However, there's some good news: this upgrade isn't a replacement, but rather another option for gamers who want to spend extra cash for an enhanced experience. Sony executive Andrew House has confirmed that the PlayStation 4.5 will exist alongside the common PS4, and all games going forward will work across both versions. Sound appealing? Here's what we know so far. The PlayStation 4 is the most powerful game console on the market today, but after two and a half years on the market, it's handily beaten by a capable gaming PC. As tech advances at an increasingly rapid rate, Sony is reportedly eager to offer an enhanced version of the PlayStation 4 that will offer a bit more processing power and speed to enable even grander and better-looking experiences. One reason is to support 4K Ultra HD resolution for gaming. While the PS4 can run 4K video footage, it's not able to handle interactive games at that incredibly crisp resolution. Supposedly, the PlayStation 4.5 will be built to allow games to run at 4K – for people who have a 4K television, of course. That might be a small number now, but it's growing steadily; and an upgraded PS4 might help sell Sony's 4K sets like the Sony XBR- X930D/KD-XD9305 , to boot. Another reason Sony wants to put a little more power on the table is for the PlayStation VR headset, which will release on October 16, 2016. Both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets require a high-end PC to operate, but the PS4 does VR with comparably less power. However, in a VR world, silky-smooth performance is crucial to ensure full immersion. With the PS4.5, developers should be able to tap into the newer hardware to enhance their VR experiences. These suspicions were further fueled when in an interview with EDGE magazine an industry insider said that PlayStation VR was going to be "terrible" on launch PS4s, creating the need for an enhanced console to offer a better VR experience. According to a leaked document first acquired by Giant Bomb , sources indicate that the PlayStation 4.5 will sport some speeder components. The CPU is said to utilize 8 Jaguar Cores running at 2.1 Ghz apiece (as opposed to 1.6 Ghz in the original PS4), while an upgraded AMD GPU should offer extra graphical muscle with 36 compute units at 911 MHz compared to 18 CU at 800 MHz in the earlier model. The transfer speed on the 8GB GDDR5 RAM will also bump up to 218 GB/sec from 176 GB/sec. Don't know what that all means? Don't worry: more processing power and faster speeds mean the PlayStation NEO will be able to handle higher-resolution output, manage more textures and details onscreen, and generally provide a smoother play experience overall. The report says that while the PlayStation 4.5 will allow for 4K gaming output, Sony won't require it to be natively supported. In other words, if a developer opts to stick with 1080p and put that processing power into other graphical or performance areas rather than resolution, that's fine: the image will be upscaled for anyone with a 4K set anyway. Frame rate is apparently a larger concern for Sony, with a mandate that games on the PlayStation 4.5 must have an equal or higher frame rate than the standard PS4 version. That way, developers don't sacrifice visual fluidity in favor of a sharper resolution. Here's the reportedly good news: while there's no word of any sort of upgrade kit for the current PlayStation 4, at least existing owners don't have to worry about exclusive games that are only designed for the PlayStation 4.5. It's not happening. That's according to the Giant Bomb report, which claims that Sony has mandated that all games for the PlayStation 4 platform must work on both the new and old consoles. Games for the new hardware can feature enhanced graphics, of course, as well as some expanded functionality, but they cannot feature exclusive play modes or split the online servers between consoles. Furthermore, the system's interface should look and act exactly the same on the new box. The report notes that Sony will require games to feature a "Base Mode" for the original PS4 console and a "Neo Mode" for the PS4.5, both of which you'll find in the same release. You'll get the same core play experience on either console, although with the Neo Mode on the new hardware, you'll see enhanced graphics and perhaps other perks as well. Andrew House further elaborated on this functionality by saying that "all or a very large majority of games will also support the high-end PS4. " This suggests that while all PS4 games will run on the Neo, a smaller number will support the additional 4K functionality. Supposedly, Sony will require that all games released from October 2016 forward offer support for both console versions out of the box, and that games shipping in late September must have a day-one patch to add in the functionality. That's according to Giant Bomb's report, but it doesn't mean that the PlayStation 4.5 will necessarily release at the start of October: Sony has reportedly given the OK for games to ship with Neo support before the console itself does. Still, that estimate lines up pretty well with what we've heard previously: a Wall Street Journal report in March suggested that Sony would announce the PlayStation 4.5 in advance of the PlayStation VR's release in October, and this rumour has been further corroborated by a report which claims that Sony is planning on announcing the console at the Tokyo Game Show in September. A pairing of the PlayStation VR and PS4.5 would make Sony's VR offering seem a lot more capable compared to the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, as well, even if those are PC-based options. Maybe we'll even see a super- sized bundle with everything tossed into one pricey box. Given E3's status as the annual hotspot for massive video game industry announcements in June, we initially thought we'd be most likely hear about the PlayStation 4.5 then and see a release pretty close to the PlayStation VR in October, but in the end E3 2016 passed without any reference being made to the Neo. Kotaku's original report on the system suggested that a price point could fall around $400, although the site's sources didn't have any consensus on that. If true, we imagine the older model will drop further in price to better differentiate the two. Releasing an upgraded PlayStation 4 so soon after the original might rub some fans the wrong way – we've even speculated as much – but at least the rumors suggest that Sony isn't abandoning the original buyers – just tempting them with something even better. Will it be worth the extra cash? We may find out pretty soon once Sony pulls back the curtain. Article continues below

2016-08-05 18:42 By Andrew feedproxy.google.com

26 Study shows how enterprise can be victimized by dropped USB keys Network equipment at risk from USB driver bug Security awareness training is a never-ending duty for infosec teams, although some CSOs despair that the message doesn’t always get through. But it’s one of the weapons IT has to deploy in a multi-faceted security strategy. But along with ‘Be sure who’s sending that email to you. and ‘Don’t click on links so fast’ is another message: ‘Don’t touch USB keys that aren’t yours.’ That message was reinforced at this week’s Black Hat conference in Las Vegas with the publicity around a paper from Google researcher Elie Bursztein, whose team tested how gullible students are at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. Their paper — actually released in April but making headlines now because it was presented at Black Hat — described how 300 USB drives were dropped around the campus to see how many would pick them up and plug in. The answer: 48 per cent. “They did so quickly,” Bursztein wrote: The first drive was connected in under six minutes. This is disturbing because infected USB drives have been a proven attacker strategy. Casually dropping an infected USB drive in an office parking lot, company foyer, or even — if an hacker gets inside — on an office floor has worked, as well as mailing USB keys with supposedly promotional material. In Google’s test some of the drives had no identification, some were labeled “exams” or “confidential”, others had door keys on a key ring or a return address label. If opened the drives had a number of files. If a user clicked on any of the files they were asked if they wanted to answer a survey about why they plugged in the drive in exchange of a gift card. Sixty-two users (about 20 per cent) responded. Their motive, overwhelmingly, was noble — to return the drive to the owner (68 per cent). Only 18 per cent said they wanted to snoop at the contents. Researchers also included various types of files (pictures, resumes) to see what students would open (and to give an idea of what attackers might think of as lures). The bottom line here is employees have to be regularly reminded that USB drives are still a great way to spread malware in the enterprise. For CISOs who have the need, Bursztein writes, USB drives can be banned by denying users access to the Usbstor.inf file , or use killusb , a tool that instantly reboots computers when an unknown USB device (including a printer, mouse or camera) is connected.

2016-08-05 18:03 Howard Solomon www.itworldcanada.com

27 The 10 best graphics cards in the world As PC gamers, we know the importance of a capable graphics card. Sure, your monitor and even your mouse matter. But nothing determines how far you can push your visual settings up quite like the GPU. The only problem is that with so many different cards to choose from, each one claiming pixel-pushing perfection, the decision alone can be taxing. The simple solution then is to go for the best of the best, the cream of the crop. In other words, the most expensive. For those of us who don't want to shell out the cost of a car on AMD's 8K-capable Radeon Pro SSG , the solution is to aim for the best bang-for-buck deal on a set budget. Keep in mind, however, that you'll need to choose the rest of your parts wisely once you've found your perfect-match GPU. If you have an Ultra HD monitor for instance, you won't survive without a high-end graphics card to make the most of it. On the other hand, there's no point in going all-in on the latest Titan X if it's being bottlenecked by an old CPU or feeding a feeble screen. In that case, you'd be more inclined to gnab one of AMD's low-cost GPUs or even Nvidia's (VR-ready) $249 (about £192, AU$331) GeForce GTX 1060. With all that in mind, here's our definitive guide to the best graphics cards money can buy. Afterwards, if you want to see how your own card compares, have a crack at our benchmarking guide. Unparalleled performance EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition If you want proper entry into 4K gaming, the Titan X no longer reigns supreme. With the launch of Nvidia's Pascal architecture, you can get the performance of two 980Tis for a fraction of what you'd spend on an EVGA Titan X SuperClock. Of course, no graphics card is perfect. This GTX 1080 falls prey to an early adoption tax in what Nvidia calls the "Founders Edition" model, based on the reference set by the company and manufactured by EVGA. Though you may want to wait for the inevitable launch of more affordable, more powerful GTX 1080 GPUs from third parties, the GTX 1080 is undoubtedly the best in its class right now – as if it's even a contest. Nearly 1080 power without the 1080 cost Zotac GeForce GTX 980Ti AMP Extreme Edition Though it can't match the GTX 1080 in terms of video memory (6GB versus 8GB GDDR5X), the GTX 980Ti offers a higher clock speed. And, with the right amount of overclocking, it can even beat that card. Cards with the "AMP" moniker usually mean business, and this card lives up to its name. It'll let you game in resolutions up to 4K, even if can't reach that glorious 60 fps standard at that pixel count. The 980Ti AMP Extreme Edition may be better value than the GTX 1080 Founders Edition, but it's far from cheap, costing around the same as a budget (or entry level, mid-range) gaming PC. Uses an all-in-one liquid cooling system and new High-Bandwidth Memory Gigabyte Radeon R9 Fury X If you're urging for a GPU that does it all, the R9 Fury X is the best AMD has to offer. Hauling an all-in-one liquid cooling system and the latest high- bandwidth memory technology may seem like a heavy workload, but Gigabyte's Radeon R9 Fury X pulls it off all the same. There is a catch, however, to what appears to be a future-proof gaming spectacle. Not only will you need space for an extra radiator-fan combo a la the liquid cooler, but 4GB of HBM memory is awfully limited compared to the 8GB of GDDR5X you can get with the GTX 1080 for a similar price. On the upside, the Fury X can easily handle anything at 1080p and in most cases even 1440p. Throw a 4K game in the mix, though, and it's a different story altogether. Tiny graphics card packs a big punch See more Sapphire Radeon R9 Nano deals Building a small PC no longer means passing on power thanks to new graphics cards like the Sapphire Radeon R9 Nano. AMD's dinky video card is short enough to squeeze into the smallest of PC cases without sacrificing the raw grunt that you get from high-end cards. Highly efficient for a Fiji GPU, it has the same 4GB of 4096-bit HBM memory found in the Fury X, with an identical number of texture units and ROPs. The clock speed is 5% lower, but on the plus side you won't need as huge power supply to go with it due to the power envelope dropping to just 175W. Titan X performance at a GTX 980 cost See more MSI GeForce 1070 Gaming X deals We all know that 1440p is the new 1080p, and so does Nvidia. That's why it's taken the new Pascal architecture and devised the GTX 1070, complete with a 1,607MHz base overclock and 8GB of 8,108MHz, GDDR5 RAM. What's more, this VR-ready card is more powerful than a Titan X for a fraction of the price. Still, while you'll be able to play everything at the highest settings at humblebrag-worthy frame rates at either 1080p or 1440p resolution, the £410 (around $584 or AUS$792) price tag of the MSI's 'Founders Edition' Gaming X card is notably more expensive than what we'll see in the coming months from AIBs, or add-in boards. AMD's card has the GTX 980 in its sights Sapphire Radeon R9 Tri-X 390X When it comes to cost, the Radeon R9 Tri-X 390X sits somewhere between Nvidia's GTX 970 and 980 cards. It often gets the better of the former card, though the 970 performs better in some games. The Tri-X 390X produces blistering frame rates at resolutions up to 2,560 x 1,440 with all graphic details dialled up to 10. Featuring 2,816 stream processors and a core clock speed of 1,055MHz, it doesn't quite pack the muscle required for 4K gaming unless you're playing lesser demanding titles. Value meets performance in Nvidia's capable card MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming Edition A variant of one of the most popular graphics cards around, the GTX 970 Gaming edition is a 1080p monster. You could even get away with gaming at 2,560 x 1,440, though you'll have to temper expectations when it comes to 4K. Featuring 1,664 stream processors, a core clock of 1,140MHz and 4GB of memory, the GTX 970 offers the mainstream performance you may be looking for without breaking the bank. Virtual reality on a budget See more AMD Radeon RX 480 deals Think you need an expensive GTX 1080 to enjoy VR games on an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive? Think again. Considering its low price point, AMD's Radeon RX 480 is an impressive performer at 1080p and, in some cases, even 1440p. While it may not reach 60fps, the holy grail of PC gaming, in every game at the highest settings, the RX 480 does manage to push out a few frames over 30 with the graphics cranked all the way up in games like Rise of the Tomb Raider and Ashes of the Singularity – both of which notably run using the latest DirectX 12 API from Microsoft. Moreover, if you're interested in overclocking with AMD's new Wattman utility, the RX 480 can move faster than a GTX 980. For the price, it's unparalleled. One of Nvidia's best price-to-performance cards ever See more Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 deals Though it might bear resemblance to the GTX 1070 and 1080, the £275/$300 GTX 1060 Founder's Edition is more aligned with Nvidia's more expensive GeForce 980. Thanks to AMD's competitively priced RX 480, which promises both 1080p and VR gaming at an aggressive price point, Nvidia was hurried into launching a similar offering. Enter the GTX 1060: a mid-range graphics card that can handle just about anything at a full HD resolution and even some titles at 1440p without too much of an impact on the frame rate. With most of us still clinging onto sub-4K resolution TVs and monitors, the GTX 1060 gives PC gamers a sweet spot absent the need to upgrade your displays. A graphics chip that's super (and super cheap) EVGA GeForce GTX 750Ti SC Based on Nvidia's Maxwell architecture, the GTX 750Ti SC is an affordable card that still packs the latest technology. This entry-level offering is still up to the task of playing the latest games if you're happy with playing on Low or Medium quality settings at 1080p resolution, and because it's small it's easy to drop into a basic PC to give it some extra graphical grunt. Just don't expect it to work miracles.

2016-08-05 18:02 By Kane feedproxy.google.com

28 Take-Two boss says he's not giving up on Battleborn Battleborn came out swinging hard against Overwatch, but it caught a hard right to the jaw at about the eight second mark of the first round, after Blizzard decided to launch the Overwatch open beta two days after Battleborn released. But even though Blizzard has hit a record quarter on the back of Overwatch's success, Strauss Zelnick, chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive, said the company isn't giving up on it. Zelnick acknowledged during Take-Two's most recent financial call, reported by Eurogamer , that Battleborn “launched to solid reviews” but failed to sell to expectations. Even so, “We think there remains an opportunity to grow the audience for this unique experience over time, and 2K will continue to drive engagement and recurrent consumer spending on the title through add-on content and virtual currency,” he said. “Solid” is actually a very apt description of our review's conclusions: Not perfect, but a good start and with plenty of potential for future improvements. Zelnick didn't get into what the immediate future holds for the game, but 2K Games—Take-Two is 2K's parent company— announced a couple of weeks ago that three new maps were on the way in the next update, along with new broadcaster tools for streamers and video makers. Earlier this summer, developer Gearbox also enabled microtransactions through the addition of Platinum in-game currency, and a couple of new characters have been added as well. 2K can also take hope from the example set by Evolve , which after months of having one foot in the grave staged a comeback as Evolve Stage 2. In June, it was barely able to maintain a concurrent player count of 100; its peak over the past 24 hours was in excess of 11,000. That's not to suggest that Battleborn will, or should, make the shift to free-to-play, but it is worth bearing in mind that both of these games are published by 2K. “We're being very frank about where we are, because we're a transparent company," Zelnick said. "We're still delivering new content to Battleborn. Audiences love Battleborn. We still have virtual currency coming for Battleborn. We're not counting it out for a minute. We're just telling you where we're at now. "

2016-08-05 17:27 Andy Chalk www.pcgamer.com

29 29 Sportsbooks That Cater To An African Audience Sports’ betting in Africa is growing with each passing day. In the past horse racing and traditional national games were the predominant offer for betting, and African players could only dream of playing for real money online casino blackjack like for example Australian and New Zealand gamblers did at the Top NZ Casinos. Nowadays however, almost all sports and casino games are on offer for betting enthusiasts and internationally renowned sportsbooks such as Bwin and BetVictor have entered the gambling market making it similar to the developed betting industry in the rest of the world. In this article we will focus on the three most popular sportsbooks which cater to the African player and offer him a top of the line customer service and top notch conditions for greatly increasing his deposit. BetVictor BetVictor, has become a household name amongst betting aficionados in Africa. The world renowned betting company offers anything from soccer, American football and boxing to horse racing and motorcycling. They have one of the best mobile applications for online betting and their Live Action Service in which betting enthusiasts get instant notifications of all live sports matches around the globe are just some of the features that make BetVictor standout amongst the competition. Bwin Sports Bwin Sports is anothersports book provider which serves more than 1 million players worldwide and a considerable number of those players is from Africa. The betting giant started operating in 1998 with only a few games, but now offers more than ten times the original number of games with which they started 17 years ago. Hockey, Formula 1, Baseball, Handball, Volleyball, Football, Tennis, Basketball, Ice, Rugby Union, Rugby League, American Football and various other sports can be accessed through their user friendly site. When players first join, they are given a first deposit bonus worth 100% or up to € 50, which for some players is serious money. Unibet Unibet is another sportsbook provider which is very popular with African betting enthusiasts. It is also one of the rare sports’ betting sites which uses its own software. They offer all the standard sports and one of their main features is their Live In-Game Betting, which allows players to bet on live events. Unibet also offers E-sports gambling in its sports book which is one of the main reasons why the Unibet Sportsbook has been chosen as the ‘European Sports-Betting Operator of the year’ twice in the last three years.

2016-08-05 16:45 Staff Writer pctechmag.com

30 How to get a year of premium antivirus protection absolutely free Threats like ransomware, software vulnerabilities and theft of personal data make online security more important than ever. Free antivirus packages give you basic protection from malicious software, but for more comprehensive coverage (including link- scanning, identity protection and parental controls), you'll have to dig into your wallet for a premium program. Or will you? The world's top antivirus developers all offer fully-featured free trials of their security suites (usually 30 days, but sometimes longer) for you to evaluate the software and decide whether to invest in a licence. With so many demos available, it's perfectly possible to enjoy a full 365 days of premium protection completely free. Once the year is up, you'll know exactly which suite suits you best, and know that you're making the best decision. We've sampled the most generous trials available, and put together a list that will give you the best protection got a full year. Only install one antivirus program at a time to avoid conflicts as security suites mistakenly flag one another as a threat. Some trials will detect other security tools automatically, but it's a good idea to use a third-party uninstaller like Revo or GeekUninstaller to make sure you've completely removed all traces before installing the next one (we used GeekUninstaller and had no issues). Norton Security Standard makes it easy to drill down through the various categories to find the specific options you need Norton Security Standard doesn't overwhelm you with options, which is a key part of its appeal (together with Norton's swift reaction to new threats and vulnerabilities). The trial takes a while to install - both to download all the necessary basic components - and you'll need to register for a Norton account before using it for the first time. Once it's finished, you'll be presented with a refreshingly simple interface, featuring just a handful of main controls, which you can then drill down through to find the exact tool you want. It's a clever way to make a complex suite of options more accessible. Virus detection is excellent too, and if you like the trial enough to pay for the full version, you'll also have your own Norton tech on call 24/7 to help secure your PC from malicious software. There's even a money-back guarantee if anything slips through the net. The Deluxe edition of Norton Security includes protection for your mobile devices - very handy Once you've tried the standard version of Norton's online security suite, try upgrading to Norton Security Deluxe , which lets you protect not just PCs, but also Macs, smartphones and tablets (up to five). Google typically does a good job preventing malicious apps entering the Play Store, but if anything unpleasant makes its way onto your mobile device, Norton will catch it before it causes damage (there's no equivalent safeguard for iOS - presumably due to Apple's more rigorous vetting process for developers). This edition also adds a convenient web portal for managing antivirus on your devices remotely, plus protection when you're shopping online. Again, the interface is simple, and the key features are easy to find for the most part. The heading 'More Norton', which contains the Deluxe tools, could be more helpfully named, but since you've already used the Standard version you'll be used to its idiosyncrasies. Kaspersky offers a frill-free antivirus program that won't slow down your gaming PC Like Norton, Kaspersky is a well-known and trusted name in internet security, with a reputation to match. Kaspersky Antivirus doesn't offer the bells and whistles you'll get with its full security suite (more on that below), but it's a reliable antivirus package that, importantly, won't slow down your PC. The trial will only protect one device, so consider making it the one you use most for gaming or other taxing tasks that might be affected by a heftier security tool. When you install the trial you'll be prompted to enter a registration code, but you can ignore this - there's a link on the right that enables you to activate the trial version instead. Before performing your first scan, make sure you update the threat database. It's a slightly annoying extra step, but after this, updates will be performed automatically in the background. You're offered a choice of full, quick and selective scans (the latter of which can target a specific drive or folder), as well as an option to scan external devices. It's recommended that you run a full scan straight after installation, after which you can schedule your own scans for convenient times. For online banking and shopping, Kaspersky Internet Security 2016 is a good choice for protecting your data Kaspersky Internet Security 2016 contains all the same features as its standard antivirus, with extra tools for keeping youngsters safe online and protecting your financial details from potential snoopers while you're shopping and banking online. Its proprietary Safe Money tool checks the website you're visiting against a list of genuine online banking sites and alerts you if it doesn't match - ideal for banks like Natwest, which (confusingly) use a different domain for online customers. There's also webcam protection (in case Mark Zuckerberg's masking-tape-over-the-lens solution doesn't appeal) When you install the software for the first time, you'll be prompted to create a My Kaspersky account for the online management tools, but there's also a small 'Skip' link at the bottom right if you're not concerned with that particular feature. As with the standard antivirus tool, you'll need to update the virus database manually before you get started, but after that it should be plain sailing. The interface is a little different, making the extra features obvious, which we appreciate. Safe Money get its own desktop icon so you can access it independently of the main suite, and offers welcome reassurance. Its parental controls make G Data's internet security suite an ideal choice for families G Data Internet Security 2016 is a particularly good option for families thanks to its built-in parental controls that protect little ones from inappropriate content. The trial edition only protects one PC though, so you'll want to install it on the main household machine and use something else for your other devices. It can also restrict the amount of time kids spend gaming, so there'll be no Minecraft until they've finished their homework. In addition to the usual protective software, G Data's internet security suite includes a tool for blocking keyloggers when you're banking online, and one for quickly patching newly exposed software vulnerabilities. There are no options for optimizing your PC's performance, but installation is straightforward, scans are swift and all the essential functions are present and correct. It's also one of the most affordable options if you choose to upgrade to the full version once you've finished trying all the other suites available. G Data Total Protection combines the above security tools with secure cloud backups G Data Total Protection (in addition to sounding like a type of toothpaste) includes all the features of the company's Internet Security package, plus automatic cloud backup for your data. You can use G Data's own secure servers in Germany, or use your Dropbox or Google Drive account, depending on how much space you need and how security-conscious you are. There's also a password manager to secure your logins, so you don't need to bother with one of the many free tools available. This is particularly beneficial, as standalone password managers are common targets for criminals. It's a good set-and-forget option, but BullGuard Internet Security offers limited user control One of the lesser-known names on the antivirus scene, BullGuard Internet Security 's standout features is cloud backup, which makes saving and restoring your most valuable files easy. The basic edition of Internet Security only offers 5GB online storage, but it can also integrate with your Dropbox account - a clever touch that we appreciate. Once BullGuard Internet Security is installed and you've registered for an account, it begins a process of 'Optimizing your PC', which sounds a little alarming when you haven't been explicitly asked to authorize this. You'll be alerted to any programs that are requesting access to the internet, and asked to approve or deny them, but beyond that it's not clear exactly what the optimization entails. Once Bullguard has finished its setup and configuration process, all the options are presented in a clear central control panel. Unfortunately there's not much transparency here either - you can choose whether to 'perform PC optimizations in the background' and set an antivirus protection level (minimal, optimal or maximum), but there's no explanation of what this actually means. The interface is clear and scans are quick, but Bullguard Internet Security is best for users who want to simply install and forget their antivirus program. BullGuard Premium Protection will safeguard your identity to help protect your credit score BullGuard Premium Protection includes some unique extras, including advanced online banking security tools, and email and SMS alerts if your financial data is compromised, enabling you to make the necessary calls to your bank before your account is drained and your cards take a virtual trip to Vegas. Note that identity protection isn't available in Australia. There's also social media protection to prevent your kids seeing inappropriate content, and the amount of cloud storage is boosted from 5GB to 25GB. The Premium Protection licence also covers three devices rather than one. The interface will be immediately familiar - the only differences being the extra buttons linking to BullGuard's premium features. Identity protection is provided in partnership with credit reference agency Experian, and requires you to sign up for another account. If you've subscribed to Experian, it's worth noting that it also provides this service itself. We like Vipre Antivirus 2016, which lets you decide how much manual control you want over your PC's protection Despite being the company's most basic product, Vipre Antivirus 2016 is surprisingly comprehensive, packing as many protective measures as some fledged internet security suites. These include scanning of social media pages (just Facebook at the moment) and search engine results for links to malicious sites, a secure file eraser and history cleaner to clean up your footprints, and protection from dangerous files in emails. Top marks to Vipre's installer, which begins with a scan that detected a stray file left over from a free antivirus tools that we'd uninstalled weeks ago. The installation process isn't the fastest, but it includes updating the virus definition database and performing an initial scan of your system, with no need to reboot in between. The main control panel is a simple slider-based affair, but drilling down through the options results in surprisingly granular options. You can even decide whether updates to the virus definition database are downloaded via a proxy - it's that detailed, and we appreciate the transparency. Scans are fast, and threat detection is effective. Vipre's Internet Security package adds a two-way firewall and quick patching of vulnerabilities in your other software Vipre Internet Security 2016 brings even more features to the party, including Auto Patch for quickly repairing software vulnerabilities, a spam filter, a two-way firewall and blocking of potentially malicious websites. As with BullGuard, Vipre's full internet security suite is very similar to its standard antivirus program in both design and operation. It also offers the same degree of customization - for example, the firewall can be as simple as set-and-forget, or you can delve into the options to manage intrusion detection and port settings. The social media monitoring is extremely easy to set up too - simply log in using your usual Facebook credentials, then either schedule regular scans or perform them manually to pick up any bad links. Comodo Internet Security Pro 8 is a sound choice if you're not comfortable tinkering with settings and options too much. It's clear, and aims to make the toughest decisions for you, where possible Another internet security suite, Comodo Internet Security Pro 8 is designed for Windows users who prefer a hands-off approach. Rather than quarantining any file that looks shifty and making you choose whether to delete it, Comodo uses its extensive cloud-based database to make the choice for you (though you can customize these settings if you'd rather take control yourself). Unusually, Comodo also offers a human touch: if you believe your PC has a virus, the company's techs can take remote control and make sure it's been thoroughly removed. Indeed, the company is so confident in its specialists' work, it will fork out up to $500 for repairs if a virus damages your machine. Some of its tools (the firewall in particular) are less necessary in Windows 10, but features like sandboxing (running unknown programs in a virtual PC so they can't affect your system files) are very welcome. When Trend Micro says 'maximum', it isn't kidding - its internet security suite includes all the tools you need to stay safe online, plus a few you won't With support for multiple devices and bonus family protection tools to protect youngsters from the worst of the web, Trend Micro Maximum Security 10 is clearly aimed at families; if you don't hear the patter of tiny feet on a regular basis, several of its settings are likely to go unused. We're also not sure about the inclusion of optimization tools for Windows and Android, which seem to be there simply to bulk out the feature list. That said, some of Trend Micro's proprietary tools are very handy. Scanning of external drives is a standard feature for all antivirus tools - free and paid - but TM goes one step further by scanning your Microsoft OneDrive account too. It would be handy to see the same protection for Google Drive and Dropbox as well; perhaps in a future update. For such a comprehensive tool, the full version is surprisingly affordable in the UK, though if you're in Australia you might prefer to look elsewhere once the trial is over. Article continues below

2016-08-05 16:30 By Cat feedproxy.google.com

31 The best Hearthstone teams Hearthstone is fundamentally a single-player experience. Major tournaments consist of head-to-head series between players, and in the end an individual competitor hoists the trophy high. Of the hundreds of events which have been held in the game’s history, no more than a dozen have been played as a team. It’s not like Hearthstone pros don’t need the strict practice regimen associated with a game like StarCraft to keep their APM sharp, most players prefer to keep their winnings, and have no problem finding practice groups among their peers. So why are there teams in Hearthstone at all? Being a Hearthstone player on a team comes with a basket of benefits, not least of which is a relatively secure source of income. For the majority of pros, having someone take care of basic needs—travel support for tournaments, career management, handling sponsors—is invaluable. Perhaps more importantly, being part of a like-minded group bound by a common goal is additional motivation to work hard. Look at the results, and you’ll find that the most successful Hearthstone players are a product of their team environment as well as their own talent. In this article, we evaluate the best teams in the Hearthstone scene today, and look where they’re headed. Widely considered to be the best team in Hearthstone, G2 Esports— formerly Nihilum before the team’s acquisition by Gamers2 in October 2015 —is testament to what a tight knit line-up can accomplish. Under the firm management of Lothar, and the positive fatherly influence of Lifecoach over the bright young minds ThijsNL and Rdu, this European quartet has conquered every peak in the game, culminating in their $150,000 championship at ATLC, two DreamHack wins and two HCT European championships. Even during individual tournaments, the G2 team compete as a family. They scout, practice and deckbuild collectively, to the point where they would lock themselves together for weeks and grind games until they are content with their decks. When you meet them in person, there’s the distinct sense of family, which partly explains why they haven’t undergone a single roster change since the team’s founding. 2015 was the year of Nihilum, and the only thing set to be different in 2016 is the name. Many parallels can be drawn between the founding of Natus Vincere’s Hearthstone team, and the best roster of 2014: Cloud9. Na`Vi is a true esports colossus, so it was big news when the organisation picked up up the highly-rated young trio of Xixo, Ostkaka and Hoej in September 2015, just in time for the final stretch of the World Championship campaign. The hope then was that that the line-up, which had already amassed nine top four finishes, would enjoy instant success under the black and yellow banner. Na`Vi’s owners were not to be disappointed. Two months after the team was formed, Ostkaka went on to win the World Championship and has continued to put up admirable results in 2016. Xixo also unleashed his true potential this year, graduating from a ladder terror into one of Hearthstone’s most consistent performers. With Dane star Hoej still in top form, and the addition of two-time OGN Korea grand finalist Surrender, Na`Vi has no weak spot in their roster. Once the undisputed kings of Hearthstone, Cloud9 are currently some ways away from their best days. The team was founded in June 2014, comprising some of the most renowned competitors in the game at the time–Gnimsh, Ekop, StrifeCro, Hafu and Kolento–immediately making them Hearthstone’s first real “super team.” The lineup grew even stronger with the acquisition of Tempo Storm star and control specialist Andrew "TidesofTime" Biessener in October of the same year. After their peak as the Archon Team League runner-ups, Cloud9’s presence on the competitive scene has slowly waned, at least compared to their dominant era. Even with the signing of former world champion Firebat and Blizzcon 2016 finalist DDaHyoNi, the org just isn’t as dominant as it once was. With the recent departure of Ekop, the Hearthstone division of the American powerhouse is at the very least in transition, and arguably has been in decline, mitigated only by the ridiculous amount of talent still on the books which makes you think a comeback may still be around the corner. Complexity Gaming might just be the best Hearthstone talent school around. Known behind the scenes for his great eye for players, team manager Sören “Fantasy” Vendsahm is responsible for turning aspiring players such as David “Dog” Caero and Jan “SuperJJ” Janssen into familiar names with fans. With SuperJJ’s unmatched consistency since SeatStory Cup 4, and Crane’s continued rise to power, Complexity Gaming are not just on the up, but very much one of the hottest teams in Hearthstone right now. Many pundits believe we’re yet to see the best from the team’s two headliners, with high hopes for Polish Shaman aficionado Mateusz “Loyan” Roszkowski, too. If that wasn’t enough, Complexity’s brand is also represented through the voices of casters Simon “Sottle” Welch and Kacem “Noxious” Khilaji, as well as a number of regular, engaging streamers including Christoffer “Asmodai” Stub and Ryab “Ryzen” Liberian, among others. If there’s one team in the European Hearthstone scene that resembles a family besides G2 Esports, it’s SK Gaming. A pillar of the esports community for almost two decades now, SK have made a couple of attempts to leave their mark on Hearthstone. Their initial roster featuring Filip “Numberguy” Samuelsen, Jung-Hwan “RenieHouR” Lee and Rocardo “Kaor” Giammanco put up some decent results, but lack of activity and success in early 2015 relegated that era of SK to oblivion. The team’s renaissance began with the acquisition of all-Swedish team Darkstar in May 2015. Long-time friends and practice partners, Freakeh, Spo, MartinCreek and Airbrushed were just what SK needed: a group of talented individuals who didn’t need to be taught how to work together. The end of 2015 saw SK Gaming rise meteorically. Credit for that goes to Freakeh’s management and tutoring—he’s renowned as the practice partner who coached Archon’s ex-star Jon "Orange" Westberg to greatness —and the roster living and practicing together in a team house in Cologne. Expect great things to come for the SK boys. Another marquee esports organization, Team Dignitas founded their Hearthstone division in 2014, starting locally by signing UK open cup stars Blackout and Greensheep, but went for rapid expansion the following year. Chakki, Kranich and Naiman were all contracted within two months of each other, and suddenly Dignitas Hearthstone had a line-up to match the brand. Though never considered to be among the top three teams in the game, Dignitas have had their moments in the spotlight. In 2015, Kranich became the first player to qualify for back-to-back world championships. That same year, DreamHack Valencia witnessed an all-Dignitas grand final as Greensheep defeated fellow countryman Blackout for the win. Since his signing, Chakki racked up a total of $30,000 competing under the Dignitas colors. Even though he recently parted ways with the UK-based organization, Dignitas still look like one of the most solid teams in Hearthstone. No team structure in Hearthstone comes close to the sheer size of Team Celestial. Founded by China’s best known player, TiddlerCelestial, the team went from a three-man roster to having more than 40 players currently under its roof—by far the most of any Hearthstone org. How that even works, financially and managerially, is a great question. According to team manager Sinn Tann, the salaries are mostly paid by the team’s sponsor DouyuTV—a streaming platform similar to Twitch—in support of the streaming personalities. Additionally, the team draws income through Hearthstone Team Story, an ongoing league for Chinese teams with a $190,000 prize pool. In terms of travel expenses, those are covered by team owner TiddlerCelestial for international events and local organizers for local events. Practice-wise, the dozens of players are split into multiple QQ chat groups —a Chinese alternative to Skype—depending on their time zone (there’s one common group, and another just for the Chinese players), whether they want to practice, come up with Team Story strategies, watch and talk about tournaments, or even screenshare/stream western events to the Chinese public. Even if you’re a die-hard fan of Liquid and it’s equine logo, there’s no denying that, competitively speaking, the team seems to be on the decline. The days when Amaz, Savjz and Neirea would show up to tournaments and be feared are gone. Even the acquisition of Complexity’s former star Dog haven’t done much to improve Liquid’s position. Nowadays, Liquid’s Hearthstone operation is more a group of streamers, casters and personalities than active competitors. Dog remains the most active tournament player, with Savjz, Sjow and Elky highly regarded as personalities rather than fierce competitors, and Neirea still looking to top his silver finish from the 2015 European Championship. Nevertheless, the Team Liquid brand carries plenty of legacy value, and history has show that Hearthstone team’s can rise from the ashes in the blink of an eye. Even though their current roster is blessed with fame rather than trophies, that could change quickly and if founder and co-owner Victor “Nazgul” Goossens decides to shake things up. A few months earlier, and I would’ve said Tempo Storm was on the decline. The brainchild of popular streamer Reynad had seen a steady drop in tournament results over the course of the last year. Once considered a serious contender to be Hearthstone’s best team, Tempo Storm had almost faded into competitive obscurity come 2016, despite the brand itself producing regular content—including the excellent Meta Snapshot , and its players remaining popular figures. Multiple factors contributed towards the team’s decline, including players living in different time-zones, making practicing difficult. Several members went inactive (it seems Hyped may have been lost to Overwatch for good), lost form, or chose to focus on streaming over competing. Then, unexpectedly, they had a flash resurgence. Both Gaara and Eloise secured seeds into the $30,000 Truesilver Championship 3 playoffs, winning the qualifiers for Tempo Storm. JustSaiyan made the playoffs for DreamHack Austin, and just a week ago Eloise also reached top eight at SeatStory Cup V. The spark of life is very much aflame in Tempo Storm, which should be heart-warming to Hearthstone fans: It’s too early to write off Reynad’s roster just yet. When Virtus.pro signed a Hearthstone team, expectations were understandbly stellar. The long-standing organization has won more than $3.7 million in its lifetime across its different game divisions, and has always been a respected and feared opponent in major esports such as Counter-Strike and Dota. So the Hearthstone roster headlined by 2016 Europe Winter finalists Naiman and DrHippi had to perform. Although mind-blowing success didn’t arrive overnight, the Virtus.pro players took their new job seriously and delivered. As if bound by some mystical force, DrHippi and Naiman once again shared a common finish and split the $10,000 top four prize at the $50,000 StarSeries Season 2. Two weeks later, the once-banned Naiman repeated his success through another top four finish at SeatStory Cup V. Today, Virtus.pro are guaranteed a representative at the World Finals, and if there’s any justice, a major championship for DrHippi is due soon. Even BunnyHoppor, with a bronze medal from the Europe Winter Championship and a top eight finish at DreamHack Valencia, shouldn’t be underestimated. All in all, Virtus.pro’s roster is very much one to watch out for. In spite of having some undisputed talent in the shape of Zalae and Amnesiac, as an organization Team Archon has been moving slowly away from esports. In June, Daily Dot reported that the Amaz-owned team had decided to focus more on streaming than competitive gaming, news which was accompanied by the departure of ESL and SeatStory champion Jon “Orange” Westberg. Orange is not the only player who left Archon in the last year. The first marquee players to leave were ladder god Sebastian “Xixo” Bentert and the team’s coach Ryan “Purple” Root, who went on to join Natus Vincere and GamersOrigin, respectively, and also win their first major LAN championships. The team’s best performing player James “Firebat” Kostesich also waved goodbye this February, to be grabbed by Cloud9 just a month later. Today’s Archon has lost much of its firepower and its biggest prospect remains young Amnesiac, who’s guaranteed to compete at this year’s World Finals, and still ranks as one of the most exciting players on the scene.

2016-08-05 16:20 By www.pcgamer.com

32 Steam hardware survey shows GeForce GTX 970 still holding strong Nvidia's Pascal and AMD's Polaris architectures have stolen the spotlight in the GPU sector as of late, but it's Nvidia's previous generation GeForce GTX 970 graphics card that's still the most popular among Steam gamers, Steam's hardware survey for July reveals. Given how new Pascal and Polaris parts are, it's not surprising that Maxwell would still hold the top spot in graphics card ownership, at least for now. According to the survey, a little over 5 percent of Steam gamers wield a GeForce GTX 970 graphics card, compared to 3.59 percent who use a GeForce GTX 960 and, somewhat surprisingly, 3.09 percent getting their gaming fix with Intel's integrated HD Graphics 4000 to round out the top three spots. Positioning is likely to change in the coming months. Both Pascal and Polaris emerged with relatively high bang-for-buck propositions, though it will take some time for consistent availability. It won't be surprising if the GeForce GTX 970 still holds the top spot at the end of August. So what else are the majority of gamers running, according to Steam's system audits? If building a system based on the most popular parts from Steam's hardware survey, you'd have a dual-core rig clocked somewhere between 2.3GHz to 2.69GHz with 8GB of RAM, 250GB to 499GB of storage, and Windows 10 64-bit. And for those with single displays, the most used resolutions is 1920x1080. Now that you know what most Steam users are running and what the PC Gamer staff is rocking , tell us about your setup(s)!

2016-08-05 16:15 By www.pcgamer.com

33 Cognizant Transfers $2.8B To The U. S. And Other Nations To Fund Acquisitions Around Next-Gen Technologies - Page: 1 Cognizant has remitted $2.8 billion from India to other countries - including the United States - to pursue acquisitions in the digital, consulting and platform spaces. "Digital is a broad area that has a lot of wind under its wings," Cognizant CEO Francisco D'Souza said during an earnings call Friday. "The world is becoming more technologically intensive, not less technologically intensive. " The Teaneck, N. J.-based company, No. 7 on CRN's Solution Provider 500 list, saw sales in the second quarter ended June 30 increase by 9.2 percent from $3.09 billion last year to $3.37 billion this year. That was in line with Seeking Alpha projections. [RELATED: Cognizant Buys 170-Person Behavioral Research And Design Firm ] Net income, however, fell 39.9 percent from $420.1 million last year to $252.4 million (41 cents per share) this year, due to the repatriation of cash from India to the U. S. in May. On a non-GAAP basis, though, net income improved from 79 cents per share last year to 87 cents per share this year, beating Seeking Alpha estimates of 82 cents per share. Wall Street reacted favorably to the results, sending Cognizant's stock up 2.2 percent to $60.04 per share shortly after noon Friday. Earnings were announced before the market opened Friday. Cognizant remitted $2.8 billion of cash from India in May, transferring $1.2 billion – or $1 billion net of taxes – to the United States and $1.6 billion to other parts of the world. Cognizant's principal operating subsidiary in India repurchased shares from shareholders, which are non-Indian Cognizant entities, resulting in the $2.8 billion in cash in India. The company wants to deploy the cash effectively to grow its business, particularly as it relates to ramping up the volume of mergers and acquisitions, chief financial officer Karen McLoughlin said during the earnings call. Cognizant is actively examining acquisition opportunities that will allow the company to expand its industry expertise, geographic footprint, service lines or technical capabilities, President Gordon Coburn said during the earnings call. Specifically, Coburn said there's a healthy pipeline of smaller, tuck-in acquisitions in the digital space and across several industries in the consulting space, as well as opportunities to strengthen its geographic footprint in Europe. Cognizant is looking to pick up the pace of small, tuck-in acquisitions since the company has become good at integrating and capturing value from these deals, Coburn said. The company has made six investments in the digital space, D'Souza said, including July's acquisition of behavioral research and design firm Idea Couture and April's purchase of a stake in human sciences consultancy ReD Associates. Although Cognizant's core growth in the digital space will be organic, Coburn said expanding the size of the team through acquisitions will supplement existing capabilities and make Cognizant stronger in the marketplace.

2016-08-05 15:35 Michael Novinson www.crn.com

34 Dishonored 2 had a QuakeCon demo, here's what was in it Dishonored 2 was shown off at this week's QuakeCon, along with Doom: Unto the Evil , Prey and Quake Champions , but unlike those games, publisher Bethesda hasn't released the video footage onto the internet. It has, however, offered a detailed write-up of what was in the Dishonored 2 demo, which I guess will do in a pinch? A few GIFs of new combat moves sweeten the deal, including the above Blink-to-swift- kick combo. Nice. The demo focused on Corvo, revealing how his powers have been updated for this second game. According to Bethesda's blog post, "Blink isn’t just for movement anymore. Twice we saw Corvo use his signature power in newly aggressive ways: blinking into a foe and immediately stabbing him in the neck, and later using it to slam into an enemy, shoving him back with deadly force. Corvo’s Blink also includes the 'stop time and redirect' improvement from the Dishonored DLC The Knife of Dunwall (often called 'Daud’s Blink' by the community and YouTubers), giving him more flexibility in traversal and stealth". You can see that Blinky shoving above, but what you can't see is Corvo slowing down time to shoot both arms off a baddie, before exploding a nest of nearby bloodflies, and then possessing one of the insects to escape. That's totally a thing that happened in the demo, apparently. "Early in the demo, we see Corvo using [Bend Time] like he did in the original Dishonored, slowing time to face off against a Nest Keeper (a creepy new bad guy who fusses over Bloodfly nests). While time is at a near-standstill, Corvo literally shoots both arms off the Nest Keeper with his pistol, then pulls out his crossbow to fire an Incendiary Bolt at a nearby nest. When time returns to normal, the disarmed Nest Keeper briefly writhes in agony, the nest bursts into flames… then the Keeper’s body rips in half at the torso, releasing a fresh swarm of Bloodflies. Corvo then escapes the dangerous infestation, transferring himself into a Bloodfly with Possession. (While we didn’t see it in action, we also know that Corvo can now upgrade Possession so he can transfer from one host to another.)" Blimey. Anyway, here's Corvo using Bend Time to punt an unconscious target temporarily into the air. There's more about Corvo's killing moves in the blog post , but what about people like me, who plan to play the game as stealthily as possible? While they don't appear to have been detailed in this demo, rest assured that he "has an arsenal of new nonlethal attacks, including combat choke, nonlethal drop attack and more".

2016-08-05 15:00 By www.pcgamer.com

35 Vintage Computer Festival West returns this weekend If you live in Silicon Valley, we’ve got your weekend planned for you. You’ll want to attend the 11th Vintage Computer Festival West at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View , Calif. This is the first such festival in the Bay Area in nine years, and it features a lot of great content the old school computing fans among you will simply love. We reported on the event last time it was held (in 2007) in the days before the Computer History Museum had even opened its permanent exhibition space. It’s always been a hotbed of interesting retro discussions, from the time Xerox Altos were hooked up and networked to play Maze War, to the year when Woz discussed the Apple II. (Related: SFMOMA elevates software to art ) This year, perhaps in honor of the newly released bits of Gary Kildall’s memoirs , Bob Zeidman will be discussing the results of his autopsies of DOS and CP/M. He seeks to determine once and for all whether or not DOS was stolen from CP/M, a question likely still hot in everyone’s minds to this day. Along with gaming pioneers Al Alcorn, Steve Russell and Don Woods being on hand to discuss early computer gaming, there will also be live demonstrations of the PDP-1 and the IBM 1401! Truly a weekend to drive your children to the brink of consciousness! For us old-timers, though, VCF West XI marks the return of a festival that not only celebrates our digital heritage, it also unites us in our love of obsolete platforms. If you’re not in the Bay Area, fret not: There is are VCF Midwest and a VCF East coming up later this year and early next year!

2016-08-05 15:00 Alex Handy sdtimes.com

36 RBS abandons IT project for hiving off 300+ bank branches The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has abandoned a project to create a banking platform that would let it meet an EU-imposed condition on its UK government bailout by splitting off part of its business. The EU insisted RBS would have to divest part of its business, creating a new standalone bank, after the bailout was agreed. This part of the organisation, which includes hundreds of RBS branches, is known as Williams & Glyn. But in its latest financial results, which saw the bank reporting £2bn of losses for the last six months, RBS said the complex nature of separating the operation had led it to abandon the IT project. “Due to the complexities of Williams & Glyn’s separation, while good progress has been made on the programme to create a cloned banking platform, the board concluded that the risks and costs inherent in the programme are such that it would not be prudent to continue with this programme,” it said in a statement. In April RBS warned that difficulties it was experiencing in creating an IT platform for the businesses meant it could miss the EU deadline for hiving off Williams & Glyn. The EU ruling states that RBS must sell its full holding in the Williams & Glyn business by the end of 2017. In 2011, Spanish bank Santander pulled out of a £1.7bn agreement to take over 316 RBS branches because of IT integration problems. Another bailed-out UK bank, Lloyds Banking Group, was also forced to split off part of its business, which it did with the creation of TSB under the codename Project Verde. Spanish bank Sabadell acquired TSB for £1.7bn, with Lloyds contributing £450m to the cost of integrating TSB and Sabadell IT. TSB’s systems are now run by Lloyds through a managed service, but Sabadell is moving TSB’s IT systems to its own in-house core banking platform.

2016-08-05 14:37 Services Editor www.computerweekly.com

37 : A stunning ultra-portable laptop that will have you reaching for your wallet By Andrew Williams | 14 mins ago See full specs £1299 inc VAT Price comparision from , and manufacturers Recently HP has produced some excellent premium laptops that caught people's attention because of their surprisingly sensible prices, laptops such as the HP Envy 13. The HP Spectre 13 has a different tactic. This is a flat-out ultra-premium laptop. It starts at £ 1149, has a design you could pick out of a line-up from 20 paces and connectivity designed for the future more than the present. It also claims to be the thinnest laptop in the world. It's pretty obvious that this is a direct rival to the 12in MacBook. It's a great laptop, but its uncompromising approach means this is not a truly mainstream machine everyone should flock to. The exact model we're reviewing here is the 13-v001na. It's an impressive spec too, with an Intel Core i7 CPU and 512GB SSD. The storage in particular doesn't come cheap, even if you buy the components yourself. You can buy the HP Spectre 13 for £1299 from Currys PC World. It also costs £1299 direct from HP. There is s slightly cheaper model (13-v000na), costing £ 1149 from HP. It has an Intel Core i5 CPU and 256GB SSD storage. While this is a laptop with an intimidating price, the upgrade does not represent a bad deal compared with what you might get from another manufacturer. A laptop this thin is not going to be feasible to upgrade for most people, so think carefully about whether you need the extra 256GB or not. See also: Best laptops to buy right now HP's grand claim for the Spectre 13 is that it is the thinnest laptop in the world. The surprising part is that even in the plain numbers, it appears significantly thinner than the 12-inch MacBook. That laptop is 13.1mm thick, this one is 10.4mm. It's phone-grade thinness. What this means in practice is there's no 'bulge' towards the back where core components like the battery and CPU live. It's skinny from front to back. Pick the HP Spectre 13 up and it seems wonderfully thin and light. However, we'd advise not loading too much importance on this little thing's 1cm-thick frame. To claim it's really that much more portable than a laptop of a similar weight that's 2mm thicker is silly. This is not a criticism of the Spectre 13 hardware, only those who simply focus too much on design elements of only moderate practical importance. The laptop is absolutely among the most convenient and portable devices with a fairly large screen. Like the 12-inch MacBook, at its most basic level this is a very conventional laptop. The screen doesn't come off and the hinge doesn't rotate around 360 degrees, although HP does make a Spectre x360 that offers such a hinge. It's actually relatively restrictive in these areas. The screen tilts back less than most laptops and the display is not a touchcreen. The Spectre 13 lacks flexibility but is a very well-made and eye-catching. The hinge is gold, bright enough to stun when it catches the light, and the rest of the laptop a brown-bronze that is the perfect counterpoint to the gold highlights. You only have to look at the keyboard keys to see the attention to detail put in. The sides of the keys and lettering are gold (not dazzling this time), and the top bronze. This is a very striking two-tone laptop. Its lid and keyboard surround are aluminium, its underside carbon fibre, which feels like a fancier take on plastic to the touch. Some may be put off by the jewellery-like hinge of the Spectre 13, but the real reason to think twice is what's on the back: the connections. As part of its mission to become the thinnest and most forward-looking laptop around, it has three USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports and a headphone jack, and nothing else. There's not a single full-size USB port. This is solid proof the Spectre 13 wants to be thought-of as the Windows equivalent to the 12-inch MacBook. In a couple of years, laptops using all-USB-C connectors may be commonplace and largely non-problematic. But at present it's not for everyone. For example, we keep a lot of our tests on an SSD drive. We normally plug the drive into test laptops with a USB plug. The Spectre 13 comes with a single USB-C to USB converter, but when using it the drive continually reports disconnections, making any transfers impossible. This could be down to a faulty driver, or the adapter cable not being designed to let the device pull too much current. Either way, it's a headache. Similarly, the lack of a memory card slot will be an understandable deal- breaker for some of you. Not all of us are ready for the connectivity-lite future yet. The theoretical capability of the ports is sound, though. One doubles as the power socket, and the other two have Thunderbolt 3.0 support, whose bandwidth is a still-amazing 40Gbps. Whether you love or hate the use of USB-C, the HP Spectre 13 does at least soundly beat the MacBook, which has a single Thunderbolt port, also used to charge the battery. The connectivity may put off a lot of traditional laptop buyers, but in other areas the HP Spectre 13 is absolutely made for this audience. Namely, it has a nicely-spaced full-size keyboard and a trackpad that doesn't feel too cut-down to fit the frame in use. Being ultra-slim and light while still offering these computer staples is the Spectre 13's whole reason to exist. We're happy to report the HP Spectre 13 hasn't suffered from any of the keyboard torture Apple subjects some of its models to. This is a classic chiclet keyboard with surprisingly good key travel for a laptop this thin. Key-press feedback is crisp, with a much more satisfying response than you'll get from the ultra-flat MacBook 12in or the slightly hollow in-situ feel of the Microsoft Surface keyboard. It's a proper laptop keyboard, in other words. A keyboard backlight makes typing in the dark much easier too, although unlike some other parts of the hardware it's totally conventional. It's either on or off, no gradations, and isn't super-bright. Compared to some larger models what it lacks slightly is some give after the initial key depress. This leads to the keys feeling slightly light mid-typing. However, we're getting into real keyboard navel-gazing territory now. The HP Spectre 13's trackpad is very good too, for a number of reasons. As you'd hope at the price, it uses a textured glass surface for a totally non- tacky feel. Its shape is sensible too. Looking at it, the pad may appear a little 'squashed', vertically. And it is. However, it's something we've only noticed while gaming. There's plenty of space for comfortable general use. It is worth considering a little more if you need to do a lot of image editing, though. Driver support is unusually good too. The HP Spectre 13 pad is unusually well-behaved among windows laptops. Where the last touch of style comes in is the click feedback. HP has got this just right. It's virtually silent, doesn't require too much force and still provides a great feel. This is not as common as you might think. That's right, while Apple has blazed ahead with a pressure-sensitive trackpad, some other manufacturers still struggle to make a standard pad that feels like it doesn't hate you. The Spectre 13 has a 13.3-inch screen. This is our preferred Windows laptop size for a machine intended for 'proper' work on-the-go. You get enough screen space to do justice to complex applications, without the bulk of a 15.6-inch laptop. It's a 1080p IPS LCD screen that, as mentioned earlier, does not use a touch layer. You'll be using the trackpad 24/7 with this laptop. A lot of our favourite portable Windows laptops of recent times use matt screens, but in keeping with the glitzy design, the Spectre 13 has a more trendy glossy finish. This means, like a MacBook, it picks up an awful lot of reflections when used outdoors or near a window. The screen backlight has the brightness needed to compete, though, going up to 365cd/m. We've used the Spectre 13 outdoors on a number of occasions, although we did need to ramp up the brightness much higher than we might with a matt-screen machine. HP has aimed for the sRGB colour standard with the Spectre 13, which is what gets you natural-looking rather than oversatured colours. It hits a respectable 90 per cent of the sRGB spectrum and 65 per cent of Adobe RGB. Native contrast is good for an LCD too, at 1300:1. At the price you can find laptops with even higher resolutions, and deeper colour, but this display is uniformly good or very good in all respects. One of the most curious parts of the HP Spectre 13 is how it defies expectations with its CPU. In a laptop this thin, we'd expect to see an Intel Core M series chipset. They're tiny, can get by with passive cooling, and offer enough power for general productivity use. The HP Spectre 13 has an Intel Core i7-6500U. This is still part of Intel's low-voltage range of CPUs, but has access to a few more gears than a Core M chipset. Matched with 8GB RAM and fast all-SSD storage, the Spectre 13 feels very fast in day-to-day use. Quite how different an experience this is to using any system with a hard drive is a rather sad indictment of Windows 10. This is still not a workhorse you'd want to replace a recent desktop PC with, but only really because the CPU only has two cores. The limits of its abilities aren't as restrictive as a Core M laptop. For example, the HP Spectre 13 can just-about handle recent games just a few years old, if you're willing to really pare back the settings. In our usual Thief 720p “ low ” test benchmark, the laptop managed a just-playable average 23.8fps. Granted, that ’ s not playable in everyone ’ s book. In Alien: Isolation it achieved 37fps average at 720p resolution, low settings. That's a very playable speed. Both tests fell apart as soon as the resolution and visuals were increased, of course, but this is better than you get from most other devices this thin. It is a shame there's no Intel i7-6650U version of the Spectre 13, though. That CPU uses Intel Iris graphics rather than the bog-standard HD 520 chipset used here. You get get it in the Surface Pro 4, suggesting fitting it in would not be impossible. Using an Intel i7-6500U also means the Spectre 13 can handle video and photo editing fairly well, although for any professionals out there, we'd only suggest using a machine like this as a backup. You'll want a non-low- voltage quad-core CPU for that sort of work. In Geekbench the Spectre 13 scores 6894 points, and 2735 in PC Mark 8. This is almost exactly what we saw in the Asus UX303U, which uses the same CPU. HP has used a decent SSD here too. It can read at 1589MB/s, and writes at 578MB/s. One of the costs of using an Intel Core i7 rather than an ultra-low power Core M CPU is that the Spectre 13 needs to use fans. It can't get by with a heatsink alone. A light-noise fan runs whenever the laptop is used, while another kicks in whenever the laptop is put remotely under strain. When playing Thief, for example, it started before we'd even reached the title screen. With a frame this thin it clearly needs to be pre-emptive about its cooling. That step up fan noise is fairly loud for a laptop this dainty, and it may annoy if you're going to be using the Spectre 13 in a quiet environment. Even with those fans whirring, the Spectre 13 get a little warm even with light use, with a hotspot at the back of the hinge where its heat outlets sit. The TDP of the CPU and the ultra-thin frame have an at times awkward relationship. One option to combat fan noise: turn on some music. HP uses Bang & Olufsen-branded speakers in the Spectre 13, but they're not hugely impressive, especially when compared with those of the 12in MacBook. Several parts of this laptop seems to have had special attention lavished on them, but the speakers are much like some of the other Bang & Olufsen laptops. Some sound causes mid-range distortion at top volume, and the tone is slightly thin. These aren't dreadful speakers, and they could be a lot worse given how thin the Spectre 13 is. But the MacBooks still lead the pack in this area, by some distance. The other risky part of the HP Spectre 13 is battery life. While Core i7 CULV-series laptops are efficient, they can still draw more power than a Core M machine. Sure enough, the Spectre 13's stamina is good but not standard-setting. When used out and about as a work computer, for writing and browsing, we found it lasts for six and a half hours. That ’ s not quite enough for a day's work for most people, and is a slightly worse than some of Asus ’ s cheaper ZenBook rivals. Playing back a locally-stored video at 120cd/m screen brightness, the HP Spectre 13 lasts eight hours 55 minutes. This is almost dead-on HP ’ s claims, although we have noticed that battery level can drop much quicker as soon as it ’ s under any sort of significant strain. If you ’ re just browsing and start to hear a louder fan whir, it is time to head to the Task Manager to see what ’ s up or you won ’ t see anything like this performance. Battery life is not one of the Spectre 13 ’ s strongest suits, but that ’ s not surprise given its frame and CPU. The HP Spectre 13 is desperate to appear a laptop of the future, and that comes with substantial pros and cons. Its supreme portability is quite wonderful, and while its design may polarise, it certainly is fancy. There's substance too, with a surprisingly powerful CPU for a laptop this thin and solid build in the keyboard and trackpad. Its message is a little confused, though. The processor courts enthusiasts, but that's exactly who's likely to be most annoyed by the lack of memory card slot and a traditional USB port. There's an audience for the Spectre 13, but if you've not signed-up to a wireless way of working yet you may want to think twice. Complete guide to Pokémon GO | How to play Pokémon GO | How to get Pokémon GO UK | Pokémon GO news:e… 1995-2015: How technology has changed the world in 20 years How the National Theatre is using VR for Set Design Samsung Galaxy Note 7 vs iPhone 6s Plus comparison: Samsung's new Note 7 phablet leads in key…

2016-08-05 14:28 Andrew Williams www.pcadvisor.co.uk

38 | Dolby Atmos cinemas | Dolby Atmos home theatre Dolby is one of the most recognisable and iconic names in audio but what is Dolby Atmos? Here we explain Dolby Atmos sound and where to find the technology including Dolby Atmos speakers, Dolby Atmos cinemas, Dolby Atmos home theatre, Dolby Atmos headphones and Dolby Atmos at Ministry of Sound. See also: Best headphones 2016. In simple terms, Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology which was initially developed in 2012. It builds on the 5.1 and 7.1 systems of yesterday and takes things to a new level by adding a lot more speakers. For example, cinema is where the tech was first introduces and a theatre with Dolby Atmos can use up to a whopping 64 speakers. In the home, Dolby Atmos looks a bit different considering you're unlikely to have space for that many speakers. For example, the Philips Fidelio Soundbar and Yamaha YSP-5600 digital sound projector both include upward firing speakers to deal with and provide the Atmos element. It's short for atmospheric so you can get a good idea of what the aim is. Read: Best Bluetooth speakers 2016. One of the easiest ways to check out Dolby Atmos is to head to the pictures where the surround sound system is in use – try and pick a good film which will really make use of it. At the time of writing there are five Dolby Atmos cinemas in London including Empire Leicester Square and Curzon Bloomsbury. There are some others dotted around the UK so check out the locator on the Dolby website to find your nearest one – remember to filter the results to Dolby Atmos, though. One of the latest ways to experience Dolby Atmos is at world-famous nightclub Ministry of Sound (MoS). As well as its existing custom sound system, the club has added a whopping 60 speaker setup which provides a monstrous 22 channels. There's also bespoke lighting to create an 'unparalleled music experience'. Gigs at MoS in Dolby Atmos launched in January this year with a Hospital Records founder London Elektricity and there have been regular events since. You can check out what's coming up here and here. The difference with Dolby Atmos at Ministry of Sound is that the experience isn't channel-based requiring multi-channel source material. Instead, it's 'object-based' where elements of regular stereo audio can be controlled with precision moving them around the room in different ways. DJs and producers can have fun with these objects with specially created software (above) so club-goers get to experience something unique. Over time Dolby Atmos has found its way into various tech products, including ones you can buy for your home or pocket. That's right; it's not just found in home theatre products like soundbars, amps and speaker systems like the Samsung HW-K950 , Kef Atmos speakers or the Pioneer SC-LX88. There are plenty more on offer so look out for the Atmos logo. You can get Dolby Atmos on much smaller and cheaper products including tablets and phones. Examples include Lenovo's Tab3 and Tab3 8 which were announced earlier this year at MWC 2016. Lenovo also has the budget Vibe K5 phones with Atmos and ZTE's Axon 7 also features Dolby Atmos. Even Amazon's Kindle Fire HDX supports Atmos with headphones.

2016-08-05 14:21 Chris Martin www.pcadvisor.co.uk

39 Anyone who uses the C key to crouch is a hopeless degenerate As PC gamers, we love to debate the merits of the various configurations our hobby allows. Some of us swear by our ultrawide monitor, a 14-button mouse, or the type of switches that sit underneath our keys. Others have strong feelings about cooling techniques and overclocking, and some of us are still arguing about WASD and its eccentric (but likable) neighbor ESDF. When we talk about this stuff, it’s like comparing cars in a parking lot, talking engine tech and tire preferences. However someone who uses the C key to crouch is not welcome, and they do not deserve our respect. The C key is the bastion of fools, and as a community we need to shame its use. C is the male nipple of keyboard bindings, a remnant that’s for some reason survived decades of gaming evolution. The original System Shock was the first first-person game to use posture control (it’s literally called this on page 24 of the manual), assigning T, G, and B to three different vertical states. Feeling the gravity of alphabetization, crouching drifted to the C key in the early ‘90s. In that time, it was a sensible bind: most early FPSes (even Unreal Tournament at the end of ’99) asked players to put both hands on the keyboard—the arrow keys were the accepted input method in genre- defining games like Doom and Dark Forces. Back then, Left Ctrl made a lot of sense as a trigger: it’s prominent, it borders just two keys, and the word ‘control’ connotes nicely with the act of firing a weapon. Maybe most of all, the position of the arrow keys meant that most of us were aiming with our dominant hands, a tradition that continues with the mouse. None of those advantages apply now that we’re using the left mouse button to shoot stuff. With Left Ctrl liberated from its early responsibilities as a primary fire button for about 15 years, it’s now the safest and most obvious choice for crouch. What am I meant to press C with? My thumb? When my left hand is on WASD, the pad of my thumb is askew. In this more perpendicular position, only a portion of the surface area of my thumb is available, and the range of motion, even to double-jointed mutants like me, is a limited arc. This is part of the reason spacebar is the natural partner for the thumb: it’s the biggest target on most keyboards, and binding it to a reflex action like jump feels natural. Wait, some of you heathens actually press C with your index finger? You give up your god-given ability to move laterally to the right (D) in order to crouch? Carmack’s ghost, it’s worse than I thought. Crouching is pretty important in a few FPSes, for recoil control and other reasons. In games that put a big emphasis on headshots, like CS:GO, changing the position of your head by crouching can change the outcome of a fight. There’s even a special technique where you have to simultaneously move sideways and crouch in CS:GO: crouch peeking. CS:GO, Source Engine games, Mirror’s Edge, and other FPSes also feature crouch jumping, allowing you to crouch in midair to tuck your legs in order to reach higher platforms. Do you bind C to crouch in these games? You are deeply troubled. Go ahead, crouch jump for me. I would enjoy watching you fail to jump atop a mundane wooden crate. Really, I shouldn’t be too hard on those who lack the courage to enter the modern world with me. PC gaming is all about the freedom to choose, however ill-advised a given choice may be. The blame actually lies with developers who continue to assign the C key to this action by default, which surprisingly includes a few of the popular first- person games in the world. Some noteworthy offenders:

2016-08-05 14:00 Evan Lahti www.pcgamer.com

40 : The 82 best films on Netflix UK Wondering what to watch next on Netflix? Here, we bring you a huge list of 82 brilliant movies available to stream on Netflix UK right now, ranging from action and adventure to thrillers and documentaries. There is so much choice on Netflix, but sometimes it can be too much choice and it's really tricky to search through so we've sifted through the lot to come up with the ultimate list of movies that we think you'll enjoy. ( Our tips on how to navigate Netflix will help too ). Here are the best films to watch on Netflix. This list was updated on 5 August 2016, but movies are changing on Netflix every day. That might mean that one or two of these movies are no longer available to watch by the time you come to read this article, and some brilliant new movies may have emerged. Let us know in the comments section below if your favourite movie is available on Netflix but not included here and we'll endeavour to add it very soon. We've also divided the movies into genres as best we can to help you pick something to suit your mood. Let's get down to business then. Here are the best movies to watch on Netflix in the UK right now. You might also want to read: How to avoid the latest Netflix scam . . If you're looking for TV shows to watch on Netflix UK, check out our 35 best TV shows on Netflix article. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol When: 2011 Who: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, directed by Brad Bird Netflix says: Super- agent Ethan Hunt and his team take on another deadly mission...to prove their innocence when they are framed for bombing the Kremlin. IMDB rating: 7.4/10 Also found in: Action & Adventure Gone Baby Gone When: 2007 Who: Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Casey Affleck Netflix says: When a 4-year-old girl vanished from a rough Boston neighbourhood and cops offer little help, her family hires two private detectives to find answers. IMDB rating: 7.7/10 Snitch When: 2013 Who: Dwayne Johnson, Susan Sarandon, Jon Bernthal Netflix says: Hoping to reduce his teenage son's mandatory 10-year federal prison sentence, a suburban father goes undercover to take down a violent drug dealer. IMDB rating: 6.5/10 Guardians of the Galaxy When: 2014 Who: Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Chris Pratt Netflix says: On the run from intergalactic warlord Ronan, hotshot space pilot Peter Quill unites a ragtag band of oddballs to form a team of unlikely heroes. IMDB rating: 8.1/10 See also : How to get American Netflix in the UK: Access US Netflix content from your PC. Mr Brooks When: 2007 Who: Kevin Costner, Demi Moore Netflix says: Charismatic Mr. Brooks is a serial killer at war with his own alter ego, whose charm won't sway the dedicated detective on his trail. IMDB rating: 7.4/10 Also found in: Crime Films Jack Reacher When: 2012 Who: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike Netflix says: When an ex-military cop investigates a sniper charged with five homicides, he's drawn into a dangerous cat-and-mouse game in this exciting thriller. IMDB rating: 7/10 Also found in: Crime Films, Action & Adventure Battle Royale When: 2000 Who: directed by Kinji Fukasaku Netflix says: The Japanese government introduces a system whereby randomly chosen schoolchildren are taken to an island and forced to fight each other to the death. IMDB rating: 7.7/10 Also found in: Cult films, Foreign films Die Hard When: 1988 Who: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia Netflix says: NYPD cop John McClane's plan to reconcile with his wife is interrupted when, after he arrives at her office, the building is overtaken by terrorists. IMDB rating: 8.2/10 Frailty When: 2001 Who: Luke Askew, Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughy Netflix says: Fenton Meiks approaches FBI agent Wesley Doyle to confess his disturbed family's role in a series of notorious Texas murders. IMDB rating: 7.3/10 Red Dragon When: 2002 Who: Ralph Fiennes, Anthony Hopkins, Harvey Keitel Netflix says: Former FBI agent Will Graham must turn to his old enemy, the savage Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter, to help him catch a new serial killer. IMDB rating: 7.2/10 The French Connection When: 1971 Who: Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey Netflix says: Tough narcotics detective "Popeye" Doyle is in hot pursuit of a suave French drug dealer who may be the key to a huge heroin-smuggling operation. IMDB rating: 7.8/10 Also found in: Action Thrillers We Were Soldiers When: 2002 Who: Mel Gibson, Madeleine Stowe Netflix says: This Vietnam War epic tells the story of the Battle of la Drang, which pitted 450 U. S soldiers against thousands of well-armed Vietnamese troops. Also found in: Drama IMDB rating: 7.1/10 Limitless When: 2011 Who: Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper Netflix says: With his writing career dragging, Eddie Morra finds his life turning around after he takes a drug that provides astonishing mental focus. IMDB rating: 7.4/10 Also seen in: Sci-Fi, Drama Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid When: 1969 Who: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross Netflix says: To evade a posse, legendary outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid flee to Bolivia – but trouble finds the charming desperadoes wherever they go. Also found in: Classic, Crime IMDB rating: 8.1/10 Shooter When: 2007 Who: Mark Wahlberg, Michael Pena, Rhona Mitra Netflix says: An expert marksman is coaxed out of seclusion by colleagues who need his help to stop a plot to kill the president, but he gets framed for the crime. Also found in: Action thrillers, crime IMDB rating: 7.2/10 Kung Fu Hustle When: 2004 Who: Stephen Chow, Wah Yuen, Yuen Qui Netflix says: Sing, a mobster in 1940s China, longs to be as cool as the formally clad Axe Gang, a band of killers who rule Hong Kong, but can only pretend. IMDB rating: 7.8/10 Also found in: Comedy Red When: 2010 Who: John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman Netflix says: Former CIA operative Frank Moses is basking in normality. But he's forced to return to old habits when an assassin puts a target on his back. IMDB rating: 7.1/10 Also found in: Comedy X-Men When: 2000 Who: Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, James Marsden, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman Netflix says: Amid increasing fear and bigotry, Professor Charles Xavier provides a safe haven for powerful outcasts like Wolverine, Rogue and Storm. IMDB rating: 7.4/10 Predator When: 1987 Who: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Duke, Carl Weathers Netflix says: A tough Army commando team on a rescue mission in South America fights a strange jungle predator, a space alien that mercilessly devours its victims. IMDB rating: 7.8/10 Also found in: Sci-Fi Trash When: 2014 Who: Martin Sheen, Selton Mello, Nelson Xavier Netflix says: Three poor Brazillian teens find something suspicious in a garbage heap, then end up on the run from the law as they try to set things right. IMDB rating: 7.2/10 Also found in: Drama Captain America: The Winter Soldier When: 2014 Who: Chris Evans, Samuel L Jackson, Scarlett Johansson Netflix says: When a deadly new foe surfaces, an increasingly restless Steve Rogers transforms into Captain America and allies with Black Widow. IMDB rating: 7.8/10 Defiance When: 2008 Who: Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Allan Corduner, Jamie Bell Netflix says: In this action-packed drama based on an extraordinary true story, four brothers protect more than 1,000 Jewish refugees during World War II. IMDB rating: 7.2/10 Also found in: Drama Looper When: 2012 Who: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Piper Perabo, Emily Blunt Netflix says: In 2044, a hired gun gets rich killing people who are sent back from another time. But what will he do when his new target is his future self? IMDB rating: 7.4/10 Also found in: Action Thrillers Django Unchained When: 2012 Who: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L Jackson Netflix says: Accompanied by a German bounty hunter, a freed slave named Django travels across America to free his wife from a sadistic plantation owner. IMDB rating: 8.5/10 Lone Survivor When: 2013 Who: Mark Wahlberg, Ben Foster, Emilie Hirsch Netflix says: Mark Whalberg stars as Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell in this action-drama based on an ill-fated real-life mission to bring down a Taliban boss. IMDB rating: 7.6/10 Star Trek Into Darkness When: 2013 Who: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana Netflix says: The "Star Trek" reboot continues with this action sequel that finds Kirk and Spock fighting a terrorist threat to Starfleet aided by an unlikely ally. IMDB rating: 7.8/10 Also found in: Action & Adventure Testament When: 1983 Who: Jane Alexander, William Devane, Rossie Harris Netflix says: A family copes with the news that nuclear bombs have been detonated across the country, and it's a matter of time before one explodes near their home. IMDB rating: 7.1/10 The Butterfly Effect When: 2004 Who: Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Eric Stoltz Netflix says: In this thriller college student Evan Treborn, who's besieged by tragic memories, discovers a way to alter his past. But will it make a difference? Also found in: Thrillers IMDB rating: 7.7/10 Funny Girl When: 1968 Who: Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif, Kay Medford Netflix says: Comedienne Fanny Brice rises from a New York tenement to the toast of Broadway, but fame can't keep her from falling for a self- destructive gambler. IMDB rating: 7.5/10 Also found in: Romance Raising Arizona When: 1987 Who: Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, Trey Wilson Netflix says: When an ex-cop and her ex-con husband learn they can't have children, they kidnap one of a furniture magnate's quintuplet sons. IMDB rating: 7.4/10 Grease: Live When: 2016 Who: Vanessa Hudgens, Keke Palmer, Aaron Tveit. Netflix says: Originally broadcast live on network television, this catchy musical follows the up-and-down high school romance of good girl Sandy and greaser Danny. IMDB rating: 7.6/10 Harold & Kumar Get the Munchies When: 2004 Who: Neil Patrick Harris, David Krumholtz, Eddie Kaye Thomas, John Cho Netflix says: Buddies Harold and Kumar set out to satisfy a stoner craving for hamburgers but end up on an epic journey when they can't find White Castle. IMDB rating: 7.1/10 Clerks When: 1994 Who: Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, directed by Kevin Smith Netflix says: A glimpse at a day in the life of Dante and Randal, convenience store clerks who are sharp-witted, potty-mouthed, and bored out of their minds. IMDB rating: 7.8/10 Also found in: Cult films, Independent films. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off When: 1986 Who: Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, directed by John Hughes Netflix says: Ferris convinces his entire school he's at death's door, then hits the streets of Chicago with his girlfriend and best friend for a day of fun. IMDB rating: 7.9/10 Also found in: Cult films, Teen comedies Zombieland When: 2009 Who: Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Woody Harrelson, directed by Ruben Fleischer Netflix says: Looking to survive in a world taken over by zombies, a dorky college student teams with an urban roughneck and a pair of grifter sisters. IMDB rating: 7.7/10 Also found in: Horror Films 22 Jump Street When: 2014 Who: Johan Hill, Channing Tatum Netlfix says: This follow-up to the film 21 Jump Street finds Schmidt and Jenko going undercover as college students to crack a fraternity crime ring. IMDB rating: 7.1/10 Also seen in: Crime films, Action & Adventure Junebug When: 2005 Who: Amy Adams, Ben McKenzie, Embeth Davidtz Netflix says: When a big-city art dealer travels to North Carolina to meet her new husband's small-town family, their trip gives rise to a multitude of problems. IMDB rating: 7/10 Also found in: Dramas, Independent Films Pineapple Express When: 2008 Who: Seth Rogan, James Franco, Danny McBride Netflix says: In this stoner buddy comedy, a lazy pothead must go on the run with his dealer after witnessing a murder involving a corrupt cop and a drug kingpin. IMDB rating: 7/10 Also found in: Action & Adventure Restless When: 2011 Who: Mia Wasikowska, Henry Hopper, directed by Gus Van Sant Netflix says: After she's diagnosed with a terminal disease, a girl strikes up a friendship with a boy who deals with his family problems by attending funerals. IMDB rating: 7.2/10 Also found in: Drama, Independent films In Your Eyes When: 2014 Who: Zoe Kazan, Michael Stahl-David, Nikki Reed Netflix says: Two strangers on opposite ends of the country have a telepathic bond that lets each one see what the other sees, a deep connection that leads to love. IMDB rating: 7.1/10 Also found in: Drama, Independent films The Purple Rose of Cairo When: 1985 Who: Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, Woody Allen Netflix says: A woman seeking escape from her job and abusive husband watches one particular movie so often that the star walks off the screen and into her life. IMDB rating: 7.8/10 Also found in: Comedies, Period Pieces Remember Me When: 2010 Who: Robert Pattinson, Emilie de Ravin, Caitlyn Dund Netflix says: Tyler's still feeling lost following the tragedy that's strained his relationship with his father when he meets Ally, a girl who understands his pain. IMDB rating: 7.2/10 Also found in: Drama Before we go When: 2014 Who: Chris Evans, Alice Eve Netflix says: Two strangers stuck in Manhattan for the night grow into each other's most trusted confidants when an evening of unexpected adventure forces them to confront their fears and take control of their lives. IMDB rating: 6.9/10 Titanic When: 1997 Who: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet Netflix says: Distraught over her engagement to a cruel millionaire, a young woman falls for a struggling artist as they set sail across the Atlantic. IMDB rating: 7.7/10 Maleficent When: 2014 Who: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley Netflix says: Turning the classic fairly tale "Sleeping Beauty" on its head, this fantasy drama tells the story from the point of view of even godmother Maleficent. IMDB rating: 7/10 The Black Stallion When: 1979 Who: Hoyt Axton, Teri Garr, Michael Higgins Netflix says: This adaptation of the children's book follows a boy named Alex , who is encouraged to race his horse after they rescued him from a deserted island. IMDB rating: 7.4/10 How to Train Your Dragon When: 2010 Who: Jay Baruchel, Gerad Butler, Christopher Mintz-Plasse Netflix says: As the son of a Viking leader, shy Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III faces a rite of passage: He must kill a dragon to prove is warrior mettle. IMDB rating: 8.2/10 Anastasia When: 1997 Who: Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Christopher Lloyd Netflix says: Anya grows up in an orphanage and has no idea that's she's really Anastasia, the long-lost daughter of Russia's last czar. IMDB rating: 7.1/10 Also found in: Musicals, Kids The Little Prince When: 2015 Who: Jeff Bridges, Paul Rudd, Rachel McAdams Netflix says: When an overscheduled girl befriends an eccentric aviator, he regales her with tales about the adventures of an unusual boy who lives on an asteroid. IMDB rating: 7.8/10 Rise of the Guardians When: 2012 Who: Hugh Jackman, Alex Baldwin, Isla Fisher Netflix says: Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and others battle a malicious spirit determined to destroy the innocent beliefs and dreams of children. IMDB rating: 7.3/10 Warrior When: 2011 Who: Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, Vanessa Martinez Netflix says: Set in the world of mixed martial arts combat, this gritty drama follows two brothers at war with each other, both with their eyes on the same prize. Also found in: Sports Films IMDB rating: 8.2/10 The Shawshank Redemption When: 1994 Who: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, directed by Frank Darabont Netflix says: Framed for murder, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison and gradually forms a close bond with older inmate Red. Also found in: Crime films IMDB rating: 9.3/10 Fargo When: 1996 Who: William H. Macy, Frances McDormand, directed by Joel Coen Netflix says: When a car dealer conspires with dim-bulb criminals to kidnap his wife for a hefty ransom, a folksy - and pregnant - police chief is on the case. Also found in: Comedy, Drama, Independent IMDB rating: 8.2/10 The Fault in Our Stars When: 2014 Who: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Nat Wolff Netflix says: Two teenage cancer patients begin a life-affirming journey to visit a reclusive author in Amsterdam. IMDB rating: 7.8/10 Flight When: 2012 Who: Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, Kelly Reilly Netflix says: After his amazing safe landing of a damaged passenger plane, an airline pilot is praised for the feat, but has private questions about what happened. Also found in: Action & Adventure IMDB rating: 7.3/10 City of God When: 2002 Who: Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino, Phellipe Haagensen Netflix says: Growing up in a Rio de Janerio slum, Rocket is able to avoid being drawn into a life of drugs and crime by having a passion for photography. IMDB rating: 8.7/10 Lantana When: 2001 Who: Anthony LaPaglia, Geoffrey Rush, Barbara Hershey Netflix says: As he grapples with guilt about his own extramarital affair, detective Leon Zat dives into a missing-persons investigation that involves four couples. Also found in: Thrillers, Crime films IMDB rating: 7.4/10 Chocolat When: 2000 Who: Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, Juliette Binoche Netflix says: As single mother and her young daughter move into a peaceful French village and open an unusual chocolate shop during the height of Lent. Also found in: British films, British comedies IMDB rating: 7.3/10 Enemy at the Gates When: 2001 Who: Jude Law, Ed Harris, Joseph Fiennes Netflix says: This suspenseful drama follows a battle of wits and wills between renowned Russion sharpshooter Vassili Zaitsev and top German sniper Maj. Konig. Also found in: Action/Adventure IMDB rating: 7.6/10 Winter's Bone When: 2010 Who: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, directed by Debra Granik Netflix says: In this unflinching noir drama, a resilient teen goes on the trail of her missing, drug-dealing father when his absence threatens the family's safety. Also found in: Independent films IMDB rating: 7.2/10 The Help When: 2011 Who: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer Netflix says: A young, white writer stirs up the status quo in 1960s Mississippi by interviewing black housemaids and bringing their stories to the masses. IMDB rating: 8.1/10 Testament of Youth When: 2014 Who: Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Taron Egerton Netflix says: An aspiring writer and the young men she grew up with come of age during the madness of World War I, experiencing love, loss and glint of hope. IMDB rating: 7.3/10 Still Alice When: 2014 Who: Julianne Moore, Kate Bosworth, Shane McRae Netflix says: When a happily married linguistics professor with three children is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, it challenges her career and her family life. IMDB rating: 7.5/10 Girl, Interrupted When: 1999 Who: Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie Netflix says: Diagnosed with a disorder, Susanna Kaysen is sent to a mental institution, where she enters the skewed world of people who truly belong on the inside. IMDB rating: 7.3/10 Precious When: 2009 Who: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton Netflix says: Viciously abused by her parents, Harlem teen Precious has an unexpected chance at a different life when she enrols at an alternative school. IMDB rating: 7.4/10 Miss Violence When: 2013 Who: Themis Panou, Elini Rossinou Netflix says: On her 11th birthday, Angeliki jumps from her apartment balcony, and the authorities find her family taking the death in stride a bit too easily. Also found in: Foreign films, Art House Films IMDB rating: 7.1/10 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold When: 1965 Who: Richard Burton, Oskar Werner, Claire Bloom Netflix says: Alec Leamas, an intelligence agent getting ready to retire, must undertake a final dangerous assignment before he can "come in from the cold. " IMDB rating: 7.7/10 Also found in: Thrillers, British films The Whistleblower When: 2011 Who: Rachel Weisz, Monica Bellucci Netflix says: Sent to Bosnia in the aftermath of civil war, an American policewoman discovers evidence that U. N. peacekeepers are covering up sex trafficking. IMDB rating: 7.2/10 Also found in: Crime films, thrillers A Single Man When: 2009 Who: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult Netflix says: The stream-of-consciousness drama centres on a day in the life of a gay college professor who's reeling from his longtime lover's recent death. IMDB rating: 7.6/10 Network When: 1976 Who: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch Netflix says: When a news anchor loses his mind on the air, his outrangeous rants boost ratings and intrigue network executives in this Oscar-winning masterpiece. IMDB rating: 8.1/10 Also found in: Comedy The Lives of Others When: 2006 Who: Ulrich Muhe, Martine Gedeck, Ilrich Tukur Netflix says: As a secret police agent eavesdrops on a successful writer in East Germany in 1984, he becomes increasingly fascinated by the man's life and politics. IMDB rating: 8.5/10 Dark Days When: 2000 Who: Directed by Marc Singer Netflix says: Documentarian Marc Singer trains his camera on a group of homeless people who live deep underground in an abandoned New York City railroad tunnel. E-Team (Netflix Original) When: 2014 Netflix says: When atrocities are committed by ruthless dictators, Human Rights Watch sends in its Emergencies Team of fiercely intelligent, dedicated investigators. On the front lines of combat zones in Syria and Libya, E-Team members document bullet holes, burnt corpses and mass graves while gathering eyewitness testimony of attacks on innocent civilians by brutal regimes...then risk their lives to deliver the evidence to the news media and criminal courts. Brasslands When: 2013 Netflix says: Seen through the eyes of American, Serbian and Roma competitors, this kinetic documentary captures the magic of the world's largest trumpet festival. The Summit When: 2012 Who: Christine Barnes, Hoselito Bite, Marco Confortola Netflix says: A filmmaker explores what went wrong when 11 people died on their way up the infamous K2, the deadliest day in modern mountaineering history. IMDB rating: 6.8/10 Also found in: Sports documentaries Brothers on the Line When: 2012 Who: Martin Sheen Netflix says: This documentary profiles brothers Walter, Roy and Victor Reuther, leaders in the United Auto Workers union who fought for laborers' rights. Blackfish When:2013 Netflix says: This fascinating documentary examines the life of performing killer whale Tilikum, who has caused the deaths of several people while in captivity. Fed Up When: 2014 Who: Michele Simon, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton Netflix says: This eye-opening documentary examines the underlying causes of childhood obesity, which has become an ever-more serious medical issue in America. IMDB rating: 7.8/10 Out in the Line-up When: 2014 Netflix says: Two gay surfers embark on a global journey to uncover the taboo of homosexuality in surfing and discover an emerging like-minded community. IMDB rating: 8/10 Attacking the Devil When: 2014 Who: David Morris, Jacqui Morris (directors) Netflix says: Intrepid newspaper editor Harold Evans wages an ongoing battle to expose the truth about a dangerous drug and obtain compensation for its victims. IMDB rating: 8.5/10 The Champions When: 2015 Who: Darcy Dennett (director) Netflix says: This documentary follows the pit bulls that are rescued from the dogfighting ring of NFL quarterback Michael Vick and given a second chance at life. IMDB rating: 9/10 Red Army When: 2014 Who: Gabe Polsky (director) Netflix says: Captain Slava Fetisov recalls his days leading Russia's dominant Red Army hockey team during the Cold War in this historical sport documentary. IMDB rating: 7.7/10 Requiem for the American Dream When: 2015 Who: Peter D. Hutchinson, Kelly Nyks (directors) Netflix says: Iconic intellectual Noam Chomsky states his case for how the bulk of America's wealth and influence has been transferred to the hands of a few. IMDB rating: 8.2/10 We'd love to know what you think about our list. Are your favourites on here? Do you think there are any we've missed? Let us know in the comments section below.

2016-08-05 14:00 Ashleigh Allsopp www.pcadvisor.co.uk

41 BTRFS RAID code needs a rewrite A slow disaster has been unfolding since the end of June in the BTRFS community. This open source file system, also known as the “ButterFS,” includes modern features that do not exist elsewhere on Linux, such as snapshots, pooling and integral multi- device spanning. According to BTRFS contributor Goffredo Baroncelli on the BTRFS mailing list, the file system computes parity incorrectly when scrubbing a corrupted RAID 5 filesystem. The behavior isn’t even this straightforward, however, and may require a complete rewrite of the portions of the software in question. According to the BTRFS mailing list, when a Linux kernel running BTRFS encounters a corrupted strip of data on a RAID disk, it properly writes a fix to disk, but then recomputes the parity of the data incorrectly and overwrites the good parity with the bad. This makes for an extremely broken set of data. Over the past few years, users have reported that replacing the first drive in a RAID has worked, but when a second drive is replaced, the RAID array crashes as if the first device were no longer working. When the bug manifests, it seems to destroy both disks in such a scenario. Chris Murphy, contributor to BTRFS, wrote to the mailing, “What’s very clear by now is that RAID56 mode as it currently exists is more or less fatally flawed, and a full scrap and rewrite to an entirely different RAID56 mode on- disk format may be necessary to fix it.” Currently, there is no specific fix planned, though developers are still trying to find out what the cause is. Eventually, it would seem, this entire section of the BTRFS code will need to be rewritten.

2016-08-05 13:58 Alex Handy sdtimes.com

42 Nikon D3300 vs D5300: Which DSLR should you choose? Buying an entry-level DSLR from Nikon is not as straightforward as it sounds. Should aspiring enthusiast photographers stepping up from a compact go for the most basic DSLR in the range (the Nikon D3300 ) or pay a bit more for a camera with a few more features, namely the Nikon D5300? If you're agonising over this choice, read on for enlightenment... The Nikon D3300 boasts a 24.2-megapixel CMOS sensor without an optical low-pass filter to enable more detailed, sharper shots (more on this later), while there is also an ISO range up to 25,600 and a fast continuous shooting rate of 5 frames per second. Meanwhile the Nikon D5300, also has a 24.2MP sensor without an optical low-pass filter, expanded ISO range of 25,600, 5fps continuous shooting mode and so on... see the problem? The main areas where it trumps the Nikon D3300 are more AF options, built-in Wi-Fi and GPS and a flip-out, 'vari-angle' screen. Oh and the rear LCD has a few more pixels… That said, there is obviously the crucial difference of price. The Nikon D3300 price tag for the body plus a compact 18-55mm VR lens stands at around £319 ($545), while the Nikon D5300 with the same lens will set you back about £140 ($150) more. Just to compound the confusion, there is also the D5500 - the replacement to the D5300. We'll leave that out of the equation here as the D5500 is about £250 ($400) more than the D3300. So the fundamental question we need to answer is whether the differences between the Nikon D3300 vs D5300 that really justify the D5300's extra spend… If you're still not sure what kind of camera you need, then read our easy to follow guide to camera types: What camera should I buy? And if you want to get a beginner DSLR but aren't sure it should be one of these two, take a look at our guide to the best entry-level DSLRs . The Nikon D5300 has a 24.2 megapixel, DX format CMOS sensor that lacks an anti-aliasing filter. Although this can increase the risk of 'moire' distortions when photographing certain patterns, it's a small risk, and is outweighed by the benefits of greater resolution. Despite being cheaper, the Nikon D3300 has a similar 24.2 CMOS sensor, which also lacks the anti-aliasing filter. Both cameras use the Expeed 4 image processing system. Expeed 4, which is also used on Nikon's higher-end SLRs, enables faster image processing, five frames per second rapid shooting, and better control of image degradation, or 'noise' at higher ISO settings. Sorry folks, it's getting boring, but you've guessed it, both the Nikon D3300 and D5300 have a native ISO range of ISO100-12,800, which can be expanded to 25,600. Keep the ISO below 1600 and you'll enjoy relatively clean, low-noise shots in low light conditions, but it's good to know you've got all that extra sensitivity if you need it. Here's where it gets more interesting. The Nikon D5300 has a 39-point AF system, based on nine cross-type AF points. This means that more AF points are available to cover a particular scene useful if you are photographing a group of people for instance, or a sports match. In comparison the entry level Nikon D3300 only has an 11-point AF system, based on 1 cross-type AF point. Now, this may seem like a major difference, but bear in mind that more experienced photographers often only select the most sensitive central AF point anyway, particular when taking portraits of still subjects. So sure, it's good to have those extra AF points to cover a scene if you're less confident about selecting individual points, but it's not a deal breaker.

2016-08-05 13:49 By TechRadar feedproxy.google.com

43 Quake Champions brings back rocket-jumps and glorious deathmatches Bethesda has been busy showing off Quake Champions, with the first gameplay video being revealed over at QuakeCon 2016. Of course, this follows the reboot of Doom which went down very well – multiplayer aside, that is, and hopefully that's where Quake Champions will redress the balance. The video clip shows a game which returns firmly to Quake III Arena (Q3A) roots in terms of the look, levels and the gameplay. So we are talking towering levels which you bounce around, with rocket-jumping and jump pads aplenty. Zebedee would be entirely at home. So there's fast-paced action aplenty with the emphasis on pure deathmatch, or as the trailer puts it: "Pure speed, pure skill, pure FPS. " Tim Willits of id Software was on hand to give out various details on the game, and show off a couple of new 'champions', including Anarki, the hoverboard riding maniac from Q3A. There will be a selection of at least a dozen champions that players can choose from in the closed beta, each with their own unique abilities. However, Willits was quick to point out that there won't be any load-outs or limits to the number of weapons you can carry. He said: "Time the weapon pickups, or kill your opponents. That's how you get weapons in a Quake game. " And tomorrow night, at the QuakeCon Finals Party, a number of gaming pros are going to engage in a public exhibition match – and that should be very interesting viewing indeed. Expect the closed beta for Quake Champions to kick off in 2017, but meantime, watch the initial trailer for the game in all its glory (or all its 'gory', rather) below… Article continues below

2016-08-05 13:35 By Darren feedproxy.google.com

44 CompuCom Launches Real-Time Threat Management Solution Via Cloud, With Intel's Help - Page: 1 CompuCom is expanding its managed security services through a new partnership with Intel that will allow the $1.9 billion systems integrator to deliver McAfee Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) as a fully cloud-hosted and delivered security information and event management (SIEM) service. CompuCom, based in Dallas, will deploy McAfee ESM as its SIEM service via its custom delivery platform, which the company built on Intel's McAfee ePo Deep Command security offering. The new offering is CompuCom's first security solution that provides real- time threat management, and according to Richard Steranka, Intel Security's head of global channel operations, building on Compucom's more traditional, network management offerings. [Related: CompuCom Brings Artificial Intelligence To Midmarket Data Centers With Breakthrough Cloud-Based Managed Service ] "It is really sort of a new service that we are offering here. We are pivoting off of the traditional network management services that [CompuCom] has been doing and moving more into proactive, real-time threat management," he said, "As [Compucom] begins to get more into security, it begins to move away from managing devices and managing logs to actually doing threat management as threats are reported, and not just reporting on it, but actually working on corrections after the detections occur. " The technology allows CompuCom to provide real-time threat management on servers and desktops, either virtual or physical, and either on premise or in the cloud. And because the service is delivered and hosted in the cloud, it will enable the company to provide what was once an expensive on premise-only service to a larger number of mid-sized and SMB clients, according to Steranka. "Ultimately it's about ... moving towards being proactive," George Karidis, executive vice president and president of CompuCom’s Cloud Technology Services, told CRN. "We are looking for the best solution always and we believe that it is the right solution for our client base. … This is going to be big for us and our clients. " However, according to Steranka, the solution is only part of a fully integrated security management platform that the two companies are beginning to build together. "This is really the first phase of a plan that we have to deliver a highly scalable threat analysis and threat management platform for them," he said.

2016-08-05 13:09 Jimmy Sheridan www.crn.com

45 45 HTC's Viveport front-end will offer VR content beyond games The SteamVR software interface that powers HTC's Vive headset is a solid tool for gamers, but HTC wants to broaden the appeal of the platform with its new Viveport hub. This new front- end for the Vive will feature "VR–like information, edutainment, social media, 360˚ video, news, sports, health, travel and shopping" content, according to HTC's announcement. HTC says Viveport will also include an update for the Vive Home app, which serves as a parallel of sorts to the well-appointed living room in Oculus' Home app. The company was mum on what that update will actually include, so we'll have to test it out ourselves when it becomes available. HTC intends to make a developer beta of Viveport available in the coming weeks, and Vive-wearing consumers can expect a release "later this fall. "

2016-08-05 12:36 by Jeff techreport.com

46 Women Solution Provider Execs Cheer Apple's Move To Close The Wage Gap - Page: 1 Women executives at two leading solution providers applauded Apple’s report this week that female and male employees who work for the tech giant’s U. S. operations are now paid equally. As recently as February , Apple CEO Tim Cook had said the Cupertino, Calif.-based company still had a wage gap between women and men employed at the company. That gap -- which saw women earn 99.6 cents to the dollar that men earned -- has now been closed, Apple indicated in a new report on its website . At Edge Solutions, a solutions provider based in Alpharetta, Ga., CEO Julie Haley said it's good to see progress on wage parity at such an important company in the tech world. “People use Apple as the gold standard right now for technology companies,” Haley told CRN. "It’s great for all technology leaders to see that as an example to follow. " At Denver-based solution provider Optiv, Director of Distribution and Vendor Alliances Wendy Hoey called the move by Apple “a big deal” for the tech industry. “It’s great news for equality,” Hoey said, although she added that for many women in the workplace it’s tough to know if wage disparities even exist at their organization. Compensation is a “very private thing,” she said. “How do you truly know if you are actually suffering from that same challenge?” Thus, more tech companies ought to follow Apple’s example and open up about wage parity issues in their organization, Hoey said. On its website, Apple said that “this past year, we looked at the total compensation for U. S. employees and closed the gaps we found. We’re now analyzing the salaries, bonuses and annual stock grants of all our employees worldwide. If a gap exists, we’ll address it.” Companies “have to really work at fairness," Haley said. "It’s something you have to constantly examine. Because there are a lot of unconscious biases that we grow up with that we have to overcome if we’re going to truly be a gender-blind tech culture.”

2016-08-05 12:29 Kyle Alspach www.crn.com

47 Svitzer Marine tracks tugboats with 4G ship-to- shore Wi-Fi Maritime safety and support specialist Svitzer Marine has seen a massive improvement in operating efficiency after deploying 4G mobile networking and ship-to-shore communications from supplier Cradlepoint. Svitzer, which is part of global shipping group Maersk , has been operating towage and emergency response services in ports since the 1830s. It now employs 4,000 people and runs 430 vessels all around the world, from Russia to South America. Svitzer faces a number of challenges in its customer-facing business processes. Towing a large ship into port is a tricky endeavour at the best of times, explains Khurram Inam, regional IT manager for Europe. He says it requires close co-ordination between up to five tugboats, all navigating through busy inshore waters with plentiful obstacles, constraints and restrictions. Until recently Svitzer was constrained, explains Inam, because it had to deal with multiple implementations of 3G and 4G networks and ship-to-shore communications processes in the countries in which it works. “We essentially had no way of managing and supporting vessels on a global scale,” he says. “We realised we had to come up with a product to provide stable and reliable communications to our tugs.” Inam also wanted to standardise the on-board IT processes, which varied from country to country, and bring in cloud connectivity so that Svitzer could manage its entire fleet from a single, central management dashboard. The ultimate goal, he says, was to switch on truly 21 st century digital operations, cut out paper reporting entirely, and enable real-time updates and access to documentation, such as manuals, timesheets and so on.

2016-08-05 12:09 Networking Editor www.computerweekly.com

48 Banner Health cyber breach underlines need for faster intrusion detection A health insurance company in the US has begun notifying 3.7 million people that their personal details may have been exposed in a data breach – seven weeks after the intrusion took place. According to the company – Banner Health , based in Phoenix, Arizona – it became aware on 7 July 2016 that cyber attackers had accessed computer systems that process payment card data at some of its food and beverage outlets. Six days later, it discovered that cyber attackers may have also gained access to information stored on some of its computer servers. “We immediately launched an investigation, hired a leading forensics firm, took steps to block the cyber attackers, and contacted law enforcement,” the company said. “The investigation revealed that the attack was initiated on 17 June 2016.” In other words the breaches had taken place three weeks (and in the case of the Banner Health servers, nearly four weeks) before the company realised any intrusion had occurred.

2016-08-05 12:07 Security Editor www.computerweekly.com

49 49 Entries Open For The Appsafrica Innovation Awards 2016 Appsafrica ,a leading dedicated portal for mobile, apps developers, startups and the tech community across Africa, has announced it is accepting applications for the 2016 edition of its innovation awards. Appsafrica Innovation Awards celebrate the best in mobile and tech from across Africa, providing winners with global publicity across multiple channels. The awards have 10 different categories – Disruptive Innovation Award, Best Social & Messaging Award, Best African App Award, Enterprise Solution Award, News & Entertainment Award, Educational Award, Fintech Award, Social Impact Award, Brand On Mobile Award, and Women In Tech Award. Interested applicants should apply in a suitable category by September 10, 2016. Application entry fee is US$60.00 per category entered. The winners of the awards will be unveiled at an Awards party in Cape Town on November 14, 2016. More than 500 industry peers and investors will be in attendance! The awards took place last year and saw startups such as Nigeria’s Gamsole, South Africa’s VCpay and Cameroon’s GiftedMom emerging winners.

2016-08-05 11:56 PC Tech pctechmag.com

50 5 Companies That Came To Win This Week - Page: 1 The Week Ending Aug. 5 Topping this week's roundup of companies that came to win is Symantec, which took some major steps toward regaining its competitive mojo by wrapping up its $4.65 billion acquisition of Blue Coat and installing that company's CEO as its own. Also making the list were a trio of companies (Pivotal, CloudGenix and Cloud4Wi) for launching their first channel programs, Juniper Networks for a savvy acquisition that will boost the technological competitiveness of its products, chipmaker ARM for its development efforts in Internet of Things security, and solution provider BCM One's acquisition that catapults it to the forefront of Microsoft cloud partners. Not everyone in the IT industry was making smart moves this week, of course. For a rundown of companies that were unfortunate, unsuccessful or just didn't make good decisions, check out this week's Five Companies That Had A Rough Week roundup.

2016-08-05 11:50 Rick Whiting www.crn.com

51 Researcher hides stealthy malware inside legitimate digitally signed files A new technique allows attackers to hide malicious code inside digitally signed files without breaking their signatures and then to load that code directly into the memory of another process. The attack method, developed by Tom Nipravsky, a researcher with cybersecurity firm Deep Instinct, might prove to be a valuable tool for criminals and espionage groups in the future, allowing them to get malware past antivirus scanners and other security products. The first part of Nipravsky's research, which was presented at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas this week, has to do with file steganography -- the practice of hiding data inside a legitimate file. While malware authors have hidden malicious code or malware configuration data inside pictures in the past, Nipravsky's technique stands out because it allows them to do the same thing with digitally signed files. That's significant because the whole point of digitally signing a file is to guarantee that it comes from a particular developer and hasn't been altered en route. If an executable file is signed, information about its signature is stored in its header, inside a field called the attribute certificate table (ACT) that's excluded when calculating the file's hash -- a unique string that serves as a cryptographic representation of its contents. This makes sense because the digital certificate information is not part of the original file at the time when it is signed. It's only added later to certify that the file is configured as intended by its creator and has a certain hash. However, this means that attackers can add data, including another complete file inside the ACT field, without changing the file hash and breaking the signature. Such an addition will modify the overall file size on disk, which includes its header fields, and this file size is checked by Microsoft's Authenticode technology when validating a file signature. However, the file size is specified in three different places inside the file header and two of those values can be modified by an attacker without breaking the signature. The problem is that Authenticode checks those two modifiable file size entries and doesn't check the third one. According to Nipravsky, this is a design logic flaw in Authenticode. Had the technology checked the third, unmodifiable file size value, attackers wouldn't be able to pull off this trick and still keep the file signature valid, he said. The malicious data added to the ACT is not loaded into memory when the modified file itself is executed because it's part of the header, not the file body. However, the ACT can serve as a hiding place to pass a malicious file undetected past antivirus defenses. For example, attackers could add their malicious code to one of the many Microsoft-signed Windows system files or to a Microsoft Office file. Their signatures would still be valid and the files functional. Moreover, most security applications whitelist these files because they're signed by trusted publisher Microsoft to avoid false positive detections that could delete critical files and crash the system. The second part of Nipravsky's research was to develop a stealthy way to load the malicious executable files hidden inside signed files without being detected. He reverse engineered the whole behind-the-curtain process that Windows performs when loading PE files to memory. This procedure is not publicly documented because developers don't typically need to do this themselves; they rely on the OS for file execution. It took four months of eight-hours-per-day work, but Nipravsky's reverse engineering efforts allowed him to create a so-called reflective PE loader: an application that can load portable executables directly into the system memory without leaving any traces on disk. Because the loader uses the exact process that Windows does, it's difficult for security solutions to detect its behavior as suspicious. Nipravsky's loader can be used as part of a stealthy attack chain, where a drive-by download exploit executes a malware dropper in memory. The process then downloads a digitally signed file with malicious code in its ACT from a server and then loads that code directly into memory. The researcher has no intention of releasing his loader publicly because of its potential for abuse. However, skilled hackers could create their own loader if they're willing to put in the same effort. The researcher tested his reflective PE loader against antivirus products and managed to execute malware those products would have otherwise detected. In a demo, he took a ransomware program that one antivirus product normally detected and blocked, added it to the ACT of a digitally signed file, and executed it with the reflective PE loader. The antivirus product only detected the ransom text file created by the ransomware program after it had already encrypted all of the user's files. In other words, too late. Even if attackers don't have Nipravsky's reflective PE loader, they can still use the steganography technique to hide malware configuration data inside legitimate files or even to exfiltrate data stolen from organizations. Data hidden inside a digitally signed file would likely pass network-level traffic inspection systems without problems.

2016-08-05 11:49 Lucian Constantin www.infoworld.com

52 The Week in iOS Apps: Ready for Rio? This week’s roundup includes a trio of apps to help you maximize your enjoyment of the Olympics. Read on! Ready for Rio? Your best mobile viewing option will be the NBC Sports app (free), where you’ll be able to view some events live, have access to replays of other events, and see highlights of each day’s medal winners. You’ll need to subscribe to a TV provider, though, to access video of the games through the app. Rio 2016 (free) “has the most up-to-date information on the Olympic schedule and results, medals, sports, athletes and teams, venues, maps, and spectators guides.” The app also includes real-time medal tables and photos from events all over the city. Not to be left out, The Score (free) offers its own helpful ways of following the Olympics. Sign up to get alerts for either your favorite country or your favorite team, letting you know when they’ve won a medal or experienced the agony of defeat. Bangers (freemium, iPhone only) lets you play and remix dance hits on your phone—Bangers and mash!—conjuring catching new beats that you can share with the world to keep your toes tapping all summer long. New songs are uploaded each week. Dropbox Paper (free) marks a turning point for Dropbox—instead of offering storage for photos, documents, and more, the new Paper app (which appears to combine elements of Slack and Google Docs) lets users collaborate on creating and syncing documents. You can post replies and comments in the document as well. Moji Maker ($1, iPhone) lets you ... make emojis. One pitch for Picniic (freemium, iPhone) calls it “Slack for families.” It features a family locator—so parents can know where their children are—as well as a shared family calendar, to-do lists, shopping lists, and more. The new app has already received an update to include a Garbage Day reminder. Tinycards (free, iPhone and iPad) lets you create flash cards—or pick from ready-made decks—to test and improve your memory on whatever topic you choose. “You’ll find country capitals, vocabulary in different languages, history, constellations, hat styles, you name it!” Your favorite decks can be shared with friends. Hopper now alerts you to airline fare sales, making travel cheaper … Tinder has added its new (occasionally controversial) “Tinder Social” feature … Firefox has update with speedier page-loading times ... Gboard , Google’s iOS keyboard, has added support for more languages, smart GIF suggestions, and the ability to personalize its look.

2016-08-05 11:45 Joel Mathis www.itnews.com

53 Android device updates: August security patches are on their way for Nexus devices The Android update world slowed to a crawl this week. But there was plenty of other news to get our attention, with Samsung showing off the Galaxy Note 7 and several new rumors about all the new software tricks in the upcoming Nexus phones. Each week, we compile all the major software updates to hit the ecosystem, including phones and tablets on U. S. carriers, unlocked phones, Android Wear smartwatches, and Android TV devices. Making sure your device is running the latest available software is a good housekeeping practice, ensuring you have the latest features with fewer bugs and gaping security holes. July saw minimal growth for Android Marshmallow. As you can see, however, large swaths of the ecosystem are still stuck on Lollipop, KitKat, and even Jelly Bean. Most of the flagships have made their way to Marshmallow by now, but Android is populated with many low-cost phones in emerging markets that don’t get timely updates. The cycle is going to reset soon with an imminent launch of Nougat , which will probably be at about 15 percent at this time next year.

2016-08-05 11:33 Derek Walter www.itnews.com

54 In pictures: Wearables at the Rio 2016 Olympics The 2016 Rio Olympics is finally getting underway and there'll be no shortage of tech at this year's event. Athletes use all kinds of gadgets to help them train and stay fit, from heads-up displays used by cyclists to jump trackers worn by the volleyball team. Here's the a few of the gadgets that have made it to Rio. You may see U. S. cyclists wearing Solos smart glasses , a kind of Google Glass for athletes. The glasses have a tiny heads-up display that shows metrics like heart rate, pace, distance, and cadence. The data appears in real-time so cyclists know if they are moving at their projected pace. The glasses have built-in headphones and can run for around six hours before their next charge. Athletes with the U. S. gymnastics team will be using LumiWave's Infrared Light Therapy device to treat minor muscle and joint pain. Each of its eight "pods" beams infrared light into body tissue, which helps increase blood flow and provide short-term pain relief. The device has been cleared by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration "for temporary relief of minor muscle pain and spasms and minor joint pain and stiffness. " While gymnasts have access to it now, the device is on pre-order to the general public starting at $449. If you see the jacket of Team USA's flag bearer light up at the opening ceremony, don't be alarmed, it's not a Hunger Games moment. Ralph Lauren added some "electroluminescent panels" that will "light the way for Team USA athletes," presumably so they don't get lost on their way back to the Olympic Village. It could double as disco-wear for those post-games parties. Wearables provide analytics data to help athletes train. The U. S. women's volleyball team will use the Vert Wearable Jump Monitor , which clips onto clothing to track how high, how far and how often each player jumps. The data is sent to an app to help coaches ensure athletes don't over-exert themselves, which can lead to injury. It can also be used for basketball and other sports. You can buy your own for $125. Crime is a big concern at the Rio Olympics, with a couple of athletes already having been robbed and fears that iPhone theft will be rampant. Visa is providing a wearable payments ring to the athletes it's sponsoring at the games, allowing them to make cashless payments. Tap the ring on a compatible payment terminal and you're done. Visa is also linking pre-paid cards to payment bands and smartwatches like the Swatch Bellamy. If 2D doesn't cut it for you, you can try watching some of the events through a VR headset. For Samsung Gear VR owners, NBC is providing 85 hours of delayed VR coverage that includes the opening and closing ceremonies, basketball, gymnastics, track and field, diving, boxing, and fencing. The content isn't free -- Gear VR owners can view the coverage via the NBC Sports app after signing in with a paid cable account. But the BBC is also providing some VR coverage through the BBC Sport 360, which will work with the Gear VR as well as lower-cost headsets for Android and iOS devices. It's not clear yet if the BBC coverage will be available worldwide; its broadcasts are usually limited to U. K. audiences. The Zika virus has got some people alarmed about the games, so Kinsa, spying a marketing opportunity, is donating its Smart Stick thermometer for use by U. S. athletes. Temperatures are recorded in a mobile app, where other symptoms and health data can also be recorded. The app has a social networking feature so athletes can keep tabs on how their teammates in the Olympic Village are doing.

2016-08-05 11:25 Agam Shah www.pcworld.com

55 iPhone 7 rumors: Wireless EarPods will sport a custom 'low-power' Bluetooth chip Now that WWDC is over, the iPhone 7 rumors are getting even louder, since its expected unveiling in September is probably the next time we’ll see Tim Cook on stage. Yes, that’s still a good while from now. To help keep track of all the scuttlebutt, we’re collecting every rumor we’ve heard so far—and every new one that crops up between now and the day Tim pulls the new iPhone out of his pocket. Then we’ll assess whether each rumor seems legit or absurd, and we’d love to hear your thoughts too. Sound off in the comments. A fully flat Home button could have 3D Touch potential too. As far as the bigger, redesigned camera, Apple always aims to improve the camera quality with each iPhone upgrade so this makes perfect sense. The Smart Connector is a rumor we’ve heard in the past, but it’s difficult to imagine which accessories would make sense to connect in the same way that they do on the iPad Pro. A keyboard would be silly. According to 9to5Mac, Apple was rumored to be testing the Smart Connector in some iPhone prototypes but may veer away from that feature in the final product. The iPhone 7 Plus might have the most amazing smartphone camera ever. The leaked image reaffirms rumors we’d heard previously about the more subtle antenna lines that are only visible on the top and bottom of the aluminum case. The photo doesn’t show the bottom of the phone, so the headphone jack’s fate is still up in the air. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus have most of the same features, but the larger phone has a small but key difference: optical image stabilization. That feature uses the Plus’s gyroscope and camera array to steady your photos even if your hand shakes. The 6 and 6s rely on camera software to achieve the same effect, though the resulting images aren’t quite as clear. If the 7 Plus has a dual-lens camera with optical zoom, it would be a huge differentiator—the Plus could become the phone to beat for serious photographers. The Pro line would be an interesting addition, and would certainly make up for the fact that the iPhone 7 is rumored to be almost identical to the 6s. Apple is also making some strides in enterprise software, so an iPhone Pro would be a logical next-step.

2016-08-05 11:20 Caitlin McGarry www.itnews.com

56 IT career roadmap: The journey to certified scrum trainer Angela Johnson's career began at a call center where she performed technical and customer support and end- user training for legal clients having trouble with the online legal research and database service WestLaw. But after a few years, during which time parent company West was acquired by Thomson Reuters, Johnson moved to Rockwell Automation, a manufacturing automation company whose products gathered and analyzed data about specific parts being machined on factory and plant floors. "I am one of a rare breed whose brain seems to intuitively understand the linear nature and thinking required to work with relational databases, I guess, and Rockwell recognized that. We had so many clients on so many different databases, but I was able to help with the technical aspects of extracting that data from Oracle, SQL, Sybase, all these different databases and analyzing it," Johnson says. She was lured away by Oracle and then, after the database giant's acquisition of retail management software company Retek in 2005, split her time between database management functions and serving as a technical trainer, teaching Retek departments and development teams to design and build custom database software. "One day, though, I knew I was done. I walked in to see my boss and said, 'I'm having dreams about databases -- I'm seeing columns and rows in my sleep. I need to do something else,'" Johnson says. Her past experience and her interest in technical education were a great fit for a project management role, so she went through the training and received her certificate as a certified project management professional (PMP). It was around the same time that Johnson discovered agile, and fell in love. "Project management, especially in tech back then, in the 'We use Waterfall and it's so cutting edge' days, felt like refereeing a disagreement at a daycare center. I'd end up spending so much time just running back and forth shuttling messages and mediating arguments between different groups, different people. And it was like, 'Argh! Why can't you just talk to each other? Why aren't you working together instead of at odds?' And so, when I read the agile manifesto it was just this huge light bulb moment of common sense: no barriers, people collaborating with each other, no hierarchies, constant communication," Johnson says. From then on, she took every opportunity available to learn about agile and scrum to participate in the methodology and to try and evangelize for it as a scrum practitioner and a scrum master. When she achieved both of those designations, she asked her own coach and trainer how to get to the level of certified scrum trainer, and she never looked back. "When I founded Collaborative Leadership Team (CLT), I wasn't a CST yet, but I had my own training materials and I was coaching organizations as a scrum master and an agile coach helping them make the transformation. I really wanted to be in the position where I could 'train the trainers,' and that took me three years," Johnson says. Like Johnson, many professional agile coaches and scrum trainers came to the role with a background in technology, computer science, management and/or education. But until recently, scrum wasn't emphasized in college computer science curriculum, says Heidi Ellis, professor of computer science and information technology, Western New England University. "We've been teaching scrum as a stand-alone class the last few years because we know businesses are using it. But a lot of programs integrate it with core courses, like data structures, introduction to programming and basic software development courses. Either way, it's important because technology changes so quickly, and because it introduces a collaborative environment early on, and teaches you how to prioritize, communicate and iterate," Ellis says. Johnson's clients are all over the spectrum: software, hardware manufacturers, IT companies, but as a CST certified by The Scrum Alliance, she also trains coaches and does her own coaching for clients outside of the technology space. Scrum.org also offers professional training and certification in the Scrum and agile methodologies, as well as a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) designation, but at Scrum.org, offerings are specifically focused on the software industry and software craftsmanship and delivery, says Dave West, product owner, Scrum.org. Most agile and scrum coaches operate as consultants, moving from client to client and helping them achieve agile transformation. Many CSTs and PSTs work with clients and deliver training classes for potential trainers while also keeping their technology skills sharp by writing code or working on side projects, West says. "We have PSTs who are still writing and developing code, of course, and many who split their time among all these areas. They're coding, they're working with clients on coaching, they're out delivering training classes, but they all have a deep technical background. That doesn't exclude someone who doesn't have a degree in engineering or computer science. I know one particular PST in the Boston area whose undergraduate degree is in music -- but it certainly helps," West says. Without a degree, real-world coding experience or other technical acumen is a necessity, as is communication, teaching skills, negotiation, collaboration and teamwork, West says. To reach the CST (or PST) level requires not just extensive experience, but validation to prove that you'll excel at the role, he says. "If you want to become a PST or a scrum trainer or expert, it's critically important to gain experience, work in the industry and learn from those above you, and then start giving back to the community. And that will validate your learning, and give you the tools you need. You can write blogs, help other people with their craft, and then over time you'll build your brand and your reputation," he says. That external validation, both from certifying bodies and from peers, colleagues, teachers and students is a crucial part of the scrum and agile community, Johnson says. "You need to keep records and documentation of people you've worked with, people you've coached, trained and mentored. You should have evidence of your contributions to the scrum community; teaching evaluations from students, your coaching and teaching materials and you have to know the scrum guide and the agile methodology inside and out and how to apply it in the real world," Johnson says. The process to become a CST is lengthy and rigorous, and it's exclusive: there are only about 190 CSTs worldwide, of which only about 20 are women, according to Johnson. Johnson's path to becoming a CST has been long and winding, but there are myriad directions to take her career from here, and that's what's most exciting, she says. "I absolutely love what I'm doing, and I never want to go back to that 9-to-5 employee type role again. I'm running a business, I'm teaching, I'm helping others make that transformation. But if I wanted to, I could go into a private organization as a CIO. I could be in upper management. I could start a consulting organization, I could even be in human resources or higher education, if I wanted to. The possibilities are endless," she says.

2016-08-05 11:17 Sharon Florentine www.computerworld.com

57 Some Pokémon Go maps in jeopardy as Niantic admits to blocking 'scrapers' If you’ve come to depend on Pokémon Go maps like Pokévision to catch Pokémon, bad news: developer Niantic has essentially confirmed that they’re going to be blocked from now on. In a blog post on Thursday, Niantic said that Pokémon Go maps like Pokévision simply consume too many server resources. Blocking those sites and related apps allowed Niantic to proceed with rolling out Pokémon Go to new markets, like Latin America. “As some of you may have noticed we recently rolled out Pokémon GO to Latin America including Brazil,” Niantic wrote. “We were very excited to finally be able to take this step. We were delayed in doing that due to aggressive efforts by third parties to access our servers outside of the Pokémon GO game client and our terms of service. We blocked some more of those attempts yesterday.” Niantic says that blocking tracker Pokémon Go maps like Pokévision resulted in a dramatic reduction in server resources that could be dedicated to Pokémon Go. There’s still nothing stopping aspiring Pokémon trainers from using crowd- sourced Pokémon Go maps, and we’ve rounded up some of the best Pokémon Go maps here. But Pokémon Go maps and apps that use “trackers” to locate Pokémon tap into the Niantic APIs themselves, essentially appearing to Niantic as if they’re everywhere at once. This gives players with tracker apps an apparent advantage, as they can find Pokémon in the wild extremely easily. Niantic seemed to imply that Pokémon Go maps that tapped into its APIs not only unduly stressed its servers, but also were essentially cheating. “It’s worth noting that some of the tools used to access servers to scrape data have also served as platforms for bots and cheating which negatively impact all Trainers,” Niantic wrote. “There is a range of motives here from blatant commercial ventures to enthusiastic fans but the negative impact on game resources is the same.” The problem, of course, is that the way recent Pokémon Go players played Pokémon in part depended on trackers. A “Nearby” feature of Pokémon Go that showed the type relative distance of nearby Pokémon has been broken, forcing players to either wander somewhat aimlessly or use trackers to help find Pokémon in the wild. Niantic promised that they were “actively working” on the Nearby feature, but offered no timetable for fixing it. Yang Liu, the developer behind Pokévision, explained his rationale for creating the Pokémon Go map site based on trackers in a long post on Medium. His argument? If Niantic won’t supply a solution, the people will. “As almost 3 weeks have passed by, the in-game tracker is broken,” Liu wrote. “People had a temporary solution in Pokévision, but we knew, and everyone else knew, this wouldn’t be permanent. We didn’t make Pokévision to spite you, Niantic — we made it so that we can keep everyone playing while we wait patiently.” Pokévision remains shut down at Niantic’s request, Liu wrote, including a personal request from John Hanke, Niantic’s chief executive.

2016-08-05 11:15 Mark Hachman www.itnews.com

58 : alternatives to the defunct Google sync utility First things first: do you really need to sync Google and Outlook calendars? You might think you do, but there are several alternative approaches which might solve your problem. For example, if you have an iPhone, Android phone or just about any other smartphone, you should be able to add multiple accounts (and therefore multiple calendars) in the settings and have Google and Outlook calendars appear together in the same app. If you don't have a phone, or your problem is on your PC and you're still using the Outlook application in Windows, it could be time to ditch it and move to the online version, Outlook.com , which supports multiple calendars. There are several other advantages of using an online email / calendar service: you can log on from any computer with an internet connection, and you don't have any synching issues as everything is stored online. Using two calendars services from two different companies can lead to problems and it's worth considering using only one, if at all possible. We understand that it's useful to use multiple email providers, but when it comes to your calendar, why not just pick one and use just that? It simplifies scheduling appointments and events and solves the whole sync problem. Both Google and Microsoft support multiple calendars, such as work and private, and offer single calendar or combined views. (This applies whether you're using a mobile device or a PC or laptop, by the way.) When adding a new event, you can choose which calendar to add it to. This is the only complication, as it's all too easy to add an event to the wrong calendar. But at least you'll have no problems with synching. To use Google or Outlook, just export one and import it into the other. For example, to export Google Calendar click the drop-down menu next to the relevant calendar in the My Calendars section on the left and choose Calendar Settings. Then scroll down and click Export this calendar. It downloads as a zip, so copy the.ics file out. To import this into Outlook, go to File, Open and export, Import and export. Select the option to import an iCalendar (.ics) file. To export your Outlook calendar, go to File, Open and export, Import and export. Select Export to a file and save it to a.csv file. To import it into Google Calendar, click the down arrow next to Other calendars and select Import calendar. If you use Outlook.com Calendar, just click Import in the menu and select the Google Calendar .ics file to import it. To export to Google Calendar is more difficult. Click the Share menu, then Get a link. Select the ICS URL with the mouse and press Ctrl+C. Go to Google Calendar, click the down arrow next to Other Calendars and select Add by URL. Press Ctrl+V to paste in the URL you copied, but replace webcals:// at the start with http://. All your Outlook events and appointments are now either in Google Calendar, whichever one you chose to import to and the sync problems are over. On an Android phone or tablet, install the free Microsoft Outlook app from the Google Play Store. (You can't simply add a Microsoft or Outlook account in the Android 'add account' setting, unfortunately. You can try adding an Exchange account, but it doesn't work with all Microsoft accounts.) The Outlook app includes your Outlook.com calendar and merges it with the one on the device. This means that no matter which calendar an appointment or event is added to, it appears in the Android Calendar app. It does not sync calendars and make them identical, it just looks that way and the Android app can read Outlook.com Calendar, but not write to it. The iPhone and iPad can display a combined Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar too. Go to Settings, Mail, Contacts, Calendars and tap Add Account. Use the options to add Google and Outlook.com accounts. Accept the offer to sync calendars and that’s it. Events added to Google Calendar, Outlook.com Calendar or Outlook if it’s synced with Outlook.com, automatically appear in the iOS Calendar app. One way to make an appointment appear in both Google and Outlook calendars simultaneously is to simply invite yourself by entering your email address when creating a new event. You basically create a meeting with yourself, so in Google Calendar you would invite yourself by adding your Outlook or Outlook.com email address. Outlook adds a calendar invitation from Google as an unconfirmed event. You can leave it like this or click the Accept button in the email to confirm it. Outlook.com does not automatically add invitations to the calendar and you have to click Accept in the email. You can manually accept emailed invitations sent from Outlook/Outlook.com to Google Calendar in Gmail, but there is a better way. Click the gear button in Google Calendar and selecting Settings. On the General tab is an option to automatically add invitations to your calendar. If you don’t want to use invitations to sync calendars, there are utilities that sync Google and Outlook calendars. gSyncit v4 is a $19.99 Outlook add-in that enables one and two way syncing between Outlook and Google calendars. Sync2 (image below) syncs Outlook with Google Calendar and does a lot more besides for £29.95. It can sync on a schedule or whenever a change in Outlook is detected. OggSync does a similar job and v8.1 fixes sync problems introduced by changes at Google, but costs $29.95 a year. Calendar Sync appears to be the perfect replacement for the old Google sync tool for Outlook users. It’s a free app that is very easy to use and does exactly what you want. Enter your Google username and password and click Save Settings. Click Sign in to Google at the bottom to authorise it. Now you can select the Google calendar to sync, if there is more than one, and whether Google or Outlook is the master calendar. A two-way sync by last modified date is possible and you can choose to delete duplicates in Outlook or Google. The Auto Sync tab enables you to sync automatically, but don’t sync too often because Google imposes limits. Some people like Calendar Sync, while others says it causes problems. Read next: 11 ways to use Google Calendar like a pro

2016-08-05 11:12 Roland Waddilove www.pcadvisor.co.uk

59 Google's beta app is bringing Google Now cards and other tricks to Now on Tap Google Now on Tap has yet to really find its way into that “must have” category for many, as the information it pulls up is often hit and miss. There’s a new improvement rolling out with the Google app beta that may help alleviate this. When you launch Now on Tap (if you’re one of the lucky few, anyway) you’ll see some of the cards that you’d find in Google Now, such as weather or upcoming events. You’ll also see icons to set a reminder, create an event, set a timer, or other commands. Now on Tap is much closer to acting like Google Now. It’s one of those staggered rollouts to the beta channel of the Google app, as I was able to launch these on a Galaxy S7 Edge but not on a Nexus 5X. Your results may vary. If you want to make this appear, you’ll want to grab the Google app beta. You’ll see more frequent updates and occasional new features like this one, though of course it could mean some bugs.

2016-08-05 10:54 Derek Walter www.itnews.com

60 Blizzard may be working on a StarCraft HD remaster Heck, we have no idea whether the rumor is even true, for that matter! We won’t have to wait long, though—iNews24 reports that Blizzard will unveil the game in September, with more details to follow at the company’s annual BlizzCon convention in November. It’s hard for me to get really excited about the words “HD Remaster” nowadays, with so many half-finished cash grabs and remasters of games that are only five or six years old, but this is how it should be done —resurrecting a beloved classic from quite a long time ago, artwork faithfully restored but the game left untouched. Hopefully that’s the reality here. We’ll keep you updated on the situation.

2016-08-05 10:32 Hayden Dingman www.itnews.com

61 Why the ‘cyber kill chain’ needs an upgrade One of the most popular models for analyzing cyberattacks doesn’t focus enough on what to do after adversaries break into networks successfully, which they inevitable will do, Black Hat 2016 attendees were told this week in Las Vegas. “Every attacker will become an insider if they are persistent enough,” says Sean Malone, a security consultant who spoke at the conference. “We need to operate under a presumption of breach.” He’s critical of a popular defense scheme called the cyber kill chain that defines seven steps attackers must take in order to succeed: reconnaissance, weaponization, delivery, exploitation, installation, command and control, and actions and objectives. The problem with it is that it assumes a traditional perimeter defense where a firewall is the main impediment to intruders. But that is no longer the case, so organizations must beef up defenses within that perimeter, Malone says. That means adding more steps, which are actually the same set only this time preceded by the word internal, so the kill chain becomes internal reconnaissance, internal weaponization and so forth. Internal exploitation, for instance, might include privilege escalation, lateral movement within the network and manipulating individual targeted machines. During internal reconnaissance, adversaries have access to a single user’s workstation and will data-mine it for local files, network shares, browser history, and access to wikis and Sharepoint. The objective is to figure out how that machine might help map the network and enable moving to more valuable assets. At each stage of the internal cyber kill chain, security architects should figure out what tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) adversaries are likely to use and then set up defensive TTPs. In the case of Internal exploitation that might be patching fully, including development and test systems, and installing effective endpoint protection products. Each of the attack phases once inside a victim’s network can take anywhere from minutes to months, including a final wait time when an attack is in place and ready to go. But note that the attacker will hold off for the optimal time to launch in order to get the most impact, Malone says. Reconnaissance and weaponization might each take months. It’s hard to disrupt weaponization because it takes place offline at the attacker’s sites. But defenders can take steps to harden their systems and applications so weaponization is more difficult, Malone says. This might also include introducing false devices on the network – obfuscation – to make the task harder. This new kill chain extends into what happens in recovery after a successful attack is carried out. Corporate cybersecurity teams need to have a plan in place for dealing with reporting breaches, contacting law enforcement, dealing with adverse publicity and the like. Each of these steps should be thought through with a plan and personnel in place to deal with them, he says. The larger goal is to build a more resilient enterprise. It won’t stop all adversaries, but it will stop more. One of the objectives is to prepare good defenses at every step of the kill chain in order to slow down attackers and make it more and more costly to continue. “You have to ask what would you do if the adversary has access to the internal corporate network, usernames and passwords, all documentation and specifications of the network devices, systems, backups and applications,” Malone says. Attackers have goals, he says, and are willing to expend a certain amount of resources to achieve them. If defenders can boost the cost – whether monetary, personnel or time – above the value the attackers expect to reap, then they can succeed more often, Malone says. It’s an economic model based on the premise that no defenses will be perfect.

2016-08-05 10:21 Tim Greene www.itnews.com

62 Deals of the week: cheap SSDs, a mechanical keyboard, and more Welcome to another round of Friday deals, gerbils. We've scoured the web for the best discounts around on PC components and peripherals this morning, and here are the best deals we found this week. There's a chance you're looking for a deal on something we didn't feature here. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with Newegg , but we also work with Best Buy , Adorama , Rakuten , Walmart , and Sam's Club. For more specific needs, you can also shop with our links at the Microsoft Store , the HP Store , and Das Keyboard's shop. That's it for this week. If you're a deals hound like us and you've sniffed out something we've missed, be sure to share your discoveries with other TR gerbils in the comments.

2016-08-05 10:17 by Jeff techreport.com

63 Facebook starts testing a Snapchat-style camera with MSQRD selfie filters Mark Zuckerberg is having a real Daenerys Targaryen moment this week. On Friday, Facebook started testing new features on its mobile apps that famously originated on Snapchat. When some users in Canada and Brazil launch the Facebook app, they will be greeted with a camera- first screen to encourage taking a photo or video. Furthermore, these users will be able to add animated filters and stickers to their selfies. This marks the first time the social network has incorporated technology developed by MSQRD , the video effects startup that Facebook acquired in March. These Snapchat-style features were launched in conjunction with the Rio Olympics. For example, users can filter their selfies to make it seem like they are wearing face makeup of their home team. The test starts rolling out today to all iOS and Android users in Canada and to iOS users in Brazil. Earlier this week, Facebook-owned Instagram delivered the initial blow against Snapchat by incorporating Stories —video and photo slideshows that disappear after 24 hours. And Instagram execs were very forthcoming about their inspiration. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said that Snapchat “deserved all the credit” for originating the idea. This is all part of Facebook’s all-out offensive to try to replicate Snapchat’s “lightning in a bottle.” In recent months, the Facebook app introduced stickers , and Facebook Messenger started testing disappearing messages . It’s unclear when and if the camera-first feature and the selfie filters will eventually become a part of the Facebook app worldwide. And it’s too early to say whether Facebook’s massive audience will embrace these drastic changes. The Facebook app already has too many moving parts—from event RSVPs to live video—that drain your iPhone battery like crazy. Perhaps a better bet would’ve been to test these features in the Instagram app, with its focus on photo and video sharing. Snapchat’s original concept of launching camera-first aligned the app perfectly for virtual and augmented reality experiences. And we know that VR and AR is something Facebook is very interested in developing. Bring out the dragons!

2016-08-05 10:15 Oscar Raymundo www.itnews.com

64 4 Major Vulnerabilities Discovered In HTTP/2 Protocol Cyber-security specialist Imperva released its latest " Hacker Intelligence Initiative (HII) Report " this week, which highlights the four major vulnerabilities in HTTP/2 -- the new version of the HTTP protocol that serves as one of the main building blocks of the internet. In the research , the company found four different attack vectors, and was able to find an exploitable vulnerability in almost all of the new components of the HTTP/2 protocol. The four different attack vectors Imperva discovered are Slow Read, HPACK (Compression), Dependency DoS, and Stream abuse. The team took an in-depth look at HTTP/2 server implementations from Apache, Microsoft, NGINX, Jetty, and nghttp2. The security researchers discovered exploitable vulnerabilities in all major HTTP/2 mechanisms that it reviewed. These include two that are similar to well known and widely exploited vulnerabilities in HTTP/1.x. "All the vulnerabilities we discovered were reported to the vendors and patched versions are already available," Itsik Mantin, director of security research for Imperva, told InformationWeek. "In order to stay safe, web administrators need to make sure to use a version of their server that has this vulnerability fixed. " Mantin explained in order to win this patching race, application providers can either make sure to continuously get patches for the servers and all the third-party libraries they are using and install them in time, or use a web application firewall with virtual patching capabilities to provide ongoing protection to their applications. He warned that, in addition to a direct financial loss, affected businesses should also take into account reputational damage, customer attrition, and legal pursuits that may have an even higher financial cost. "This is especially concerning when it comes to web attacks, as the attacker can run the attack on hundreds or thousands of vulnerable applications from any point of the globe and without leaving his couch," Mantin said. The HTTP/2 protocol was designed to be the next-generation protocol for web applications. Unlike the stopgap HTTP/1.x, the new protocol displays a complete technical makeover and introduces new significant mechanisms, but with its broader scope extends the attack surface and introduces new vulnerabilities into servers and clients. The Imperva report noted it is likely that other implementations of the HTTP/2 protocol also suffer from these vulnerabilities. [ Read how many companies were vulnerable to ransomware in 2015 .] While the designers of HTTP/2 made a "significant effort" to identify and address security risks involved in the new protocol through design choices, the survey noted that implementations of HTTP/2 servers do not always follow these guidelines. Imperva tested five popular servers and found all to be vulnerable to at least one attack, leading to the conclusion that other implementations of the protocol could suffer from these vulnerabilities, especially those that rely on external HTTP/2 libraries. The report also cautions that many open source software code vendors share the same code and are therefore likely to have the same vulnerabilities. This indicates vendors need to cooperate to mitigate vulnerabilities that make the work of patching things ever more lengthy and complicated. "This research is pointing out once again that new technology brings new risks. When releasing new code into the wild, it is only a matter of time until new vulnerabilities are found and exploited," the report concluded. "The solution lies with an external component in the network that aims to reduce these risks. "

2016-08-05 10:05 Nathan Eddy www.informationweek.com

65 NPD Group: Top 8 Best-Selling Tablet Brands In 2016 Q2 - Page: 1 Apple Vs. Everyone Else With popular tablets such as the iPad Air and iPad Pro, Apple grabbed a substantial amount of market share during the second quarter in terms of sales through technology distributors, according to NPD Group , a Port Washington, N. Y.-based market research firm. Lenovo also stepped up its tablet sales game during the quarter, while Samsung, HP and ASUS saw declines in their tablet sales market share, NPD Group found. Following are the top eight best-selling tablet brands in the second quarter, according to NPD Group, which provides data from leading technology distributors. Sales of Microsoft's Surface Pro tablets were not included. NPD Group's DistributorTrack sales database is comprised primarily U. S. Global Technology Distribution Council members.

2016-08-05 10:02 Kyle Alspach www.crn.com

66 Apple's Swift 4 road map focuses on ABI, concurrency Apple hasn't even delivered its Swift 3 language yet and already is getting an early thumbs-up from developers for planned Swift 4 follow- ups, which will focus on application binary interface (ABI) stability, concurrency, and scripting. In a recent post on the swift- org mailing list, Apple's Chris Lattner, senior director of developer tools, said Swift 4 was due in fall 2017, with Swift 3.x set to arrive next spring. Swift was introduced as an eventual successor to Objective-C in June 2014. Stage 1 development in Swift 4 will prioritize source stability as well as resilience, enabling public APIs to evolve over time even with ABI stability. "For example, we don't want the C++ ' fragile base class ' problem to ever exist in Swift," Lattner said. Swift advocates were pleased with the ABI plans. "Stabilizing the ABI was originally a goal for Swift 3, but it got kicked down the road," said Aaron Hillegass, CEO of Big Nerd Ranch, which builds applications for Apple's iOS platform. "Stabilizing the ABI is very important because at this time, every Swift app includes the entire standard library, which adds at least 10MB to every app. " At PerfectlySoft, which is leveraging Swift in its Perfect application server, CTO Kyle Jessup said ABI stability was important for system-level software and distribution of precompiled libraries. "Apple is serious about pushing Swift as its main programming language, and with a well-defined and stable ABI, it can begin to consider introducing Swift-only APIs into their SDKs. " Other capabilities planned for this stage include generics improvements for the standard library and string re-evaluation. "String is one of the most important fundamental types in the language," said Lattner. "The standard library leads have numerous ideas of how to improve the programming model for it without jeopardizing the goals of providing a Unicode-correct- by-default model. Our goal is to be better at string processing than Perl. " Jessup believes that string processing is imperative for writing almost any piece of software today. "Swift's Unicode-correct by default for string objects were a great move, but some of the APIs could be made more consistent and useful or powerful," he said. "Hopefully, after revisiting Swift strings, it will become easier to write parsers and other important tools using Swift. " Lattner would like to see a memory ownership model added as well. "Adding an opt-in Cyclone/ Rust-inspired memory ownership model to Swift is highly desired by systems programmers and folks who want predictable and deterministic performance," such as in real-time audio processing code, he said. But Hillegass was skeptical about how much success Apple would have in emulating Rust's memory model. "Everyone in the developer community is impressed with Rust's memory ownership model -- it's an impressive blend of safety and performance especially in multithreaded environments," he said. "However, I think it's going to be very difficult to bolt this on afterward. The design of Rust and its libraries were all based on that memory ownership model. " Apple is planning to add "first class" concurrency, including actors, async/await, atomicity, and memory model, in stage 2 of Swift 4's development, though Lattner concedes it will take more than a year to design and build these capabilities. "Concurrency is the problem everyone is trying to solve today," Hillegass said. "Everyone has multiple cores on the their device, and nearly every app accesses the cloud. Languages like Go and Elixir have very compelling approaches to concurrency built into the language. If Swift is going to be an alternative, especially on the server, it needs to have good answers to the questions around concurrency. We are especially interested to see how the memory management model of Swift changes to better support a multithreaded environment. " In the scripting space, regular expressions and multiline string literals also are considered stage 2 for Swift 4. Other capabilities for stage 2 include property behaviors, providing "powerful" abstractions over the existing property model; submodules; implicit promotions between numeric types; importing of C++ APIs; guaranteed tail calls; user-defined attributes; better SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data); and data parallelism.

2016-08-05 10:00 Paul Krill www.infoworld.com

67 Report: Nexus home button animation and 'night light' option appear amid a batch of leaks The slow drip of Nexus leaks turned into a pour this week. A few new concepts from Android Police reveal a lot about how much the new Nexus phones will be Google-ified with a snazzy home button animation, a new “night light” mode, and a double-tap home screen feature. The home button animation is consistent with our belief the Google Assistant will have deep integration into the next Nexus phones. It looks like holding down the button will launch the assistant, which would have even greater contextual awareness than what you currently get with Google Now on Tap. The Google Assistant will be one long press away on the newest Nexus phones. Given the steady stream of leaks, we may find out even more before Google officially unveils its next phones about how Now on Tap and the Google Assistant will be always at the ready. Another major reveal includes a settings menu that offers a Support tab. This would likely be for the screen sharing feature that would allow for Google support staff to provide guided assistance directly on your phone. While Google already offers telephone and chat support, this would make the experience even more customer-friendly. A new support tab may allow live screen sharing if you need support directly from Google. The report also includes a Night Light mode. A Night Mode in the Android Nougat beta , but there has been some discussion about whether it would appear in the final Nougat release or not. It's gone from settings in the most recent Nougat beta, but the Quick Settings button remains. The Nexus iteration appears to be more powerful with custom scheduling or using sunrise and sunset data. It’s another example of how CEO Sundar Pichai indicated that the Nexus line may stand apart from other Android phones. Lastly, there’s a small tidbit about a double-tap gesture of the ambient display. Checking your phone may be as simple as a double-tap on the home screen. This way you could get those notification previews without having to pick up your phone off the desk, which is the current way to glance at this information on a Nexus.

2016-08-05 09:54 Derek Walter www.itnews.com

68 6 high-tech ways thieves can steal connected cars Our vehicles contain critical personal information such as our personal contacts, registration and insurance details, financial information and even the address to our home -- making entry, theft and further damage even more of a possibility. Our vehicles are truly an extension of one’s connected self and the technology associated with them offers substantial benefits. With the emergence of sophisticated technology, the nature of vehicle theft has changed. A major adversary of today’s vehicle owner is a smarter, connected and more targeted network of criminals, known as ‘Connected Vehicle Thieves’. LoJack , provider of vehicle theft recovery and advanced fleet management solutions, shows how these New Age thieves can take advantage of the technology in vehicles. “Car cloning” is an advanced form of vehicle theft, where savvy thieves create and install a fake vehicle identification number (VIN) for a stolen vehicle, allowing it to go unnoticed in plain sight. This method is primarily used to take high-end luxury vehicles and sell them overseas for profit, remaining undetected. Hackers can then use the purloined VINs to alter ownership forms, or to create false new documents to hide a stolen car’s true identity. One growing and increasingly lucrative type of cybercrime is the use of ransomware, where inserted malware encrypts digital data and instructs a victim to pay the criminal a ransom to restore the decrypted information. With the emergence of the connected car and vehicles being used as WiFi hot spots, vehicle-enabled ransomware is a predictable next step for hackers, exploiting this new avenue to commit digital “kidnapping.” For example, in the near future, thieves could easily break into a vehicle, disable the engine and brakes, and demand bitcoin to restore the car to its functional state. Connected vehicle thieves have begun carrying scanner boxes, or devices that can exploit the electronic system utilized by key fobs. Once the key comes in close enough range to the scanner box and is compromised, these criminals can then unlock, and even start, a vehicle without even touching the key. This problem has been particularly noted in Washington state. As LoJack’s 2015 Vehicle Recovery Report demonstrates, today’s thieves are increasingly part of larger, organized crime rings targeting higher value vehicles that can then be cut up for parts, re-sold or even shipped overseas. These luxury vehicles are valued over $30,000, and some of the top vehicle models recovered in 2015 included Land Rover Range Rover, Ford F- Series, and BMW X-Series. These theft rings often utilize complex schemes, such as acquiring and copying smart keys and using stolen credit reports and false identities to illegally finance vehicles. Remote hacking made headlines last year with the infamous takeover of a Jeep Cherokee caught on video , highlighting that connected car thieves view wireless networks as the weakest link in high-tech vehicles. Features that are common in most modern vehicles, like restaurant guides and built- in GPS, are connected to a telecommunications network. As a result, modern vehicles are vulnerable to a debilitating cybersecurity attack or, worse, a complete navigation takeover. These days, connected cars carry more information and personal data than ever before, making identity theft a more serious threat. Thieves are targeting your vehicle, but also the data within it, which could lead to credit card details, location information, Social Security numbers, and personal IDs like drivers’ licenses. Once this information is obtained, it’s possible for a hacker to access any of your online accounts.

2016-08-05 09:45 Ryan Francis www.computerworld.com

69 Mars rover Curiosity celebrates fourth anniversary Today marks the fourth anniversary of NASA's rover Curiosity landing on the Red Planet and beginning its work to investigate Mars' history of habitability. The last four years have been ones of great exploration, scientific and engineering achievements, and... well.... curiosity. "Recently, NASA gave Curiosity the best anniversary gift it could hope for -- an extension of its mission for at least two more years," said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity project scientist for NASA, in a posted video . "We'll use it to reach progressively higher and younger rocks on Mount Sharp, including rock types we've not yet explored. We can't wait to see how the story of the ancient habitability of Mars continues to unfold. " Curiosity, NASA's nuclear-powered, SUV-sized super rover with the widest array of scientific instruments to yet work on another planet, landed on Mars during the evening (Pacific Time) of Aug. 5, 2012. That landing, which had scientists around the world holding their collective breath, was the beginning of a great voyage for this robotic machine. Curiosity has been tasked with finding evidence that Mars was ever -- in its history -- able to support life, even in microbial form. Less than two months into the beginning of its mission, Curiosity found a piece of key evidence -- water . The rover sent back evidence that there had been what scientists call "vigorous" ancient water flows on the surface of Mars. That was just the beginning. The next year, Curiosity found evidence that there is water in the Martian soil. That's encouraging both from a historical perspective and for the fact that it might one day help humans to live and work on Mars. Astronauts would not be able to carry all the water they would need with them on the journey from Earth, so they would need to be able to source water right there on Mars. Finding water in the soil would help them do just that. Just last year, Curiosity discovered that Mars holds another key element for life -- nitrogen . Scientists said the nitrogen could have found its way to Mars by being carried on meteorites or lightning. With the data being sent back from Curiosity, scientists now know that at least some Martian rocks contain sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon -- all key chemical ingredients for life, be it microbial or bacterial or another form. Of course, the robotic rover has had its challenges as well. Just this summer, for instance, Curiosity put itself into safe mode because it suffered a software glitch. NASA engineers, though, quickly resumed communications with Curiosity and got the rover back to work by sidestepping use of the glitchy software. "Our rover operations team has hit its stride," Vasavada said in the video. "It used to take a month to drill and analyze a rock sample. Now it takes just a week. " He added that despite "expected wear and tear" on Curiosity's wheels, they continue to function and are expected, with careful driving, to enable the rover to cover all the ground it needs to during its mission. Just last month, NASA announced that Curiosity now is using an artificial intelligence system that allows the machine to pick out targets -- without human intervention -- to photograph and hit with its laser. Curiosity now is "frequently" choosing multiple targets every week on its own. With Curiosity's long-term success already assured, NASA engineers now are working on building their next robotic Mars rover . The next rover, scheduled to launch in the summer of 2020 and land on Mars in February 2021, has the goal of going the next step. While Curiosity is searching for proof that Mars could have supported life in its history, the next rover will search for evidence of that ancient life.

2016-08-05 09:40 Sharon Gaudin www.computerworld.com

70 UK government hit with new complaint about hacking abroad A group of privacy advocates and internet providers has filed a new challenge to the U. K. government's use of bulk hacking abroad. U. K.-based Privacy International and five internet and communications providers aim to "bring the government's hacking under the rule of law," they said in a case lodged Friday with the European Court of Human Rights. Their application challenges the U. K. Investigatory Powers Tribunal's (IPT's) February refusal to rule on whether hacking efforts outside the U. K. by the GCHQ British intelligence service comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. That decision was part of a case brought by Privacy International against GCHQ back in 2014, and it effectively meant that the U. K. government could lawfully conduct bulk hacking of computers, mobile devices, and networks located anywhere outside of the UK, the group said. "The IPT's decision permits the British government to hack untold numbers of computers devices or networks abroad without any proper legal framework, oversight or safeguards," Scarlet Kim, legal officer for Privacy International, said in a published statement . Hacking is "extremely intrusive," Kim added. "Allowing the British Government to hack, therefore, sanctions an extraordinary expansion of state surveillance capabilities, with alarming consequences for the privacy and security of many people around the world. " Also participating in the case are Chaos Computer Club of Germany, U. K.- based GreenNet, Jinbonet of South Korea, and U. S.-based May First and RiseUp. In May, Privacy International filed a separate Judicial Review at the U. K. High Court challenging a separate aspect of the IPT's decision -- namely, that the British government can issue general warrants to hack the electronic devices of broad classes of people, both inside and outside the U. K. A GCHQ spokesperson declined to comment on ongoing litigation.

2016-08-05 09:13 Katherine Noyes www.itnews.com

71 Artificial Intelligence vs. Intelligence Augmentation The philosophical war between artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligence augmentation (IA) has been waged for more than half a century, with the focus shifting between the two as each has made important strides. On one side, the AI camp believes the future of computing is autonomous systems that can be taught to imitate/replace human cognitive functions. A recent example is Google’s autonomous car, where the machine completely replaces human intervention and interaction. On the other side, the IA folks believe that information technology can supplement and support human thinking, analysis, and planning, but leave the human at the center of human-computer interaction (HCI). Consider a car collision avoidance system that can help a driver prevent an accident, but doesn’t actually remove the driver from the picture. The last two decades have witnessed AI’s rising fortunes, with the success of IBM’s Deep Blue computer, which beat chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov in 1997, IBM’s Watson defeat of Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in 2011, and most recently, Google’s AlphaGo defeate of Go champion Lee Sedol this year. These successes demonstrated the superiority of computers over humans in accomplishing a certain kind of undertaking. And following each, countless predictions emerge of the ascension of machines and the demise of the human. Vivek Wadhwa, a distinguished fellow at Stanford and Duke universities and business technology specialist, recently said , "In a decade or two you'll find that robots and artificial intelligence can do almost every job that human beings do. We are headed into a jobless future.” According to AI theorists, it’s not just game-playing computer programs that are poised to wrest control of your life. In the last few months Microsoft , Google and Facebook have all announced bot frameworks – software designed to automate tasks, like setting up an appointment or performing an Internet search. Modern bots employ AI technology to process conversations (or text sessions), effectively replacing the human operators who typically stand behind these processes. Recent examples of bots and chatbots include Domino’s bot for ordering pizzas, Taco Bell’s bot for ordering food via Slack, and (the slightly creepy) X.ai bot which automatically schedules meetings with colleagues while posing as a human. Experts predict bots will soon replace apps as the primary way we complete tasks. The simplicity of the bot promises to replace the rigid structure of the app; it’s easier and more intuitive to use. Instead of navigating through an app, you will simply speak to (or text) a bot and tell it what you want. AI is finding its way into the cloud, as well, where Microsoft and Google are already purporting to change the way we work. Using the artificial intelligence behind Microsoft’s Office Graph , the Office 365 app Delve presents users with recommendations for documents and conversations they may want to view. Google’s recommendations in apps like Google Now use the AI embedded in the Google Knowledge Graph to present information it thinks users will want to see, including nearby restaurants, shops, and museums. This is just the beginning. Expect to see an endless stream of AI apps aiming to solve every problem you have ever had. After 50 years, has IA finally been vanquished? Are we ready to relinquish control to autonomous cars, software bots, and AI-based recommendation engines? The answer is yes … and no. While AI will clearly play a larger role in our daily lives, it is not a panacea. AI-based solutions work best in structured environments where all relevant information can be considered and where the goals of the system are clearly defined – ordering a pizza, setting a meeting, playing chess. In all these cases, while the number of possible outcomes that has to be considered may be enormous, the outcome can be predicted with a high degree of confidence (and can be tweaked based on user response to improve results in the future). This is exactly the situation where a powerful computer has an advantage over the human mind. On the other hand, artificial intelligence is not well suited to situations where goals and inputs are not well defined; it’s here where intelligence augmentation will continue to play a major role. Let’s look at an example. A salesperson focused on closing business relies upon many different systems to do their job. Email is the main source of information today, but others include SharePoint, Box, or Dropbox for documents; Skype, Slack, Yammer, Chatter, text messaging, and the phone for real-time communications; and business apps for order processing, trouble ticketing, and customer relationship management. On any given day, integrating that disparate information is an exhausting task. AI-based machine learning systems can extract topics from messages on each of these systems and even match them across systems. But then what does the salesperson do with that information? Here is where AI reaches its limits and IA excels: assisting the human operator in evaluating what action should to be taken next. Should they contact the prospect to offer a discount, reach out to the internal support team for help in solving a customer problem, or research a competitor’s offering to develop a competitive comparison? What the information worker needs is an IA-driven dashboard, app, or widget that aggregates information from different systems, extracts topics from each update, and them matches them across systems to create a common vocabulary for work activities. It should then assist the user to arrange the information in ways that make it easy to digest – for example, with intelligent filters and visualization tools. Thus, IA allows the worker to play with the information, to arrange and process it in a manner that best lets them decide what do to next. This case of the salesperson is not an isolated one. There are many such business processes where the human will remain in the driver’s seat for years to come. The job of system designers is to continue to provide them with the best tools to deal with information overload caused by disconnected information coming from many disparate systems. And IA will continue to play a leading role in this challenge. Today’s information worker is inundated by inputs from an increasing number of data sources, and as a result they are turning to a growing number of cloud services to get business done: for storing and sharing documents; for completing transactions via CRM, HR, and business- specific apps; and for communicating with peers via social tools like Skype and Slack. And since individuals and departments can sign up for whatever services they need (often without IT’s approval), the corpus of tools being used by an organization is becoming progressively diverse. Trying to make sense of this cacophony of signals is creating an information overload for workers, who now run the risk of dropping the ball instead of focusing on, and completing, important work endeavors. Simply put, it’s becoming more difficult to see the information forest for the data trees. AI-based systems can help here as well. They can help make sense of this Data-Tower of Babel by creating contexts out of information emanating from different systems. But that’s as far as artificial intelligence can go, because what comes next requires human intervention – and that's where intelligence augmentation still picks up the slack. The AI vs. IA war isn’t a war after all. They both have an important role to play in our future.

2016-08-05 08:40 David Lavenda www.itnews.com

72 Spotify's latest personalized playlist wants to put new releases on your radar Spotify's hoping it can leverage users’ personal listening habits to create a new hugely popular automated playlist and add another feature to stay ahead of the competition. On Friday, the streaming service Release Radar, a personalized playlist of up to two hours of new music releases. The content for the playlist is based on the artists you follow on Spotify and those you listen to the most. There are also some suggestions based on your most recent listening habits, similar to what Spotify does with the Discover Weekly playlist. Release Radar will be updated weekly every Friday; Spotify says the playlist is meant as a complement to New Music Friday. Spotify’s previous work with Discover Weekly shows that Spotify subscribers are receptive to these specially tailored playlists. Discover Weekly is a weekly playlist of different artists Spotify thinks you’ll like based on your listening habits. The playlist refreshes its content every Monday. Discover Weekly first launched in July 2015 and by May 2016 it had over 40 million listeners with close to 5 billion tracks streamed overall.

2016-08-05 08:14 Ian Paul www.itnews.com

73 Automation key to getting SDN security right Where did your network go? We’re rapidly approaching a time when enterprises won’t be able to actually see their networks’ cables or the blinking router lights. Software defined networks drive efficiency and agility and make businesses more scalable and flexible. But SDNs also incite uncertainty about security because the network is moving out of plain sight. If you can’t see the network, how do you control and secure it? One useful analogy is the anxiety some people feel when flying; they are afraid of flying yet aren’t at all anxious about driving a car. Yet, statistically, a plane is far safer than the car as a mode of transport. The key issue here is control. Sitting in the drivers’ seat, most of us feel in control. We know how to drive the car and how to stay safe. But we’re not at the controls of the plane and, what’s more, most of us don’t know how to fly them. It’s unfamiliar territory, with no visibility. The basics of security in SDNs are the same as in any other network environment. You need to know what’s happening within your network through rigorous monitoring. You need to properly manage all changes, put risk analysis at the heart of your security posture, maintain the notion of least privileged, segment the network according to business critical applications, and maintain governance and compliance requirements. Security of the network perimeter will depend on whether you’re using a public cloud (in which case it will depend on what’s provided by the platform provider) or a private cloud (in which case it is up to your own security team to provide). Security inside the SDN is where things get more flexible. Current options include: In addition to these options there is one crucial element that organizations should use to manage SDN security – automation. When Gartner asked businesses about their primary motivation for deploying cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS), the winning factor – by a significant margin – was agility. It is crucial, therefore, that security does not become the bottleneck that prevents fast, agile deployments (and decommissioning processes) in a cloud environment. Yet, by 2019, according to Gartner, 80% of all cloud breaches will be due to user misconfiguration as well as mismanaged credentials or insider theft, rather than provider-based vulnerabilities, which illustrates that the biggest potential vulnerability in SDN is user error rather than an inherent lack of security. This is where automation comes in. Making manual changes to network and security processes policies every time a new application is deployed or a new server added is a cumbersome, error-prone process in on-premise networks. But in a hybrid cloud environment making changes manually quickly becomes downright impossible. A security policy management solution that automatically calculates, implements and documents all change processes, from connectivity discovery right through to security policy decommissioning, is therefore essential for SDN. Network security implementation in SDN is undoubtedly different to that in an on-premise environment. Businesses that take the same approach to network security in both situations are doing it wrong.

2016-08-05 08:11 Nimmy Reichenberg www.itnews.com

74 IT COST commission says feds could save $5.8 billion on IT The federal government is expected to spend nearly $90 billion on IT this year, yet transparency into how that money is spent and benchmarking to verify how well it’s spent have been has been hard to come by. Last year, the IT Cost, Opportunity, Strategy and Transparency (IT COST) commission was formed, bringing together private and public sector IT leaders to create recommendations for better understanding and managing federal IT spending. Created by the Technology Business Management Council (TBM), IT COST’s goal was to adapt TBM’s taxonomy and toolkit for Fortune 500 IT spending for a government audience. The council began meeting monthly last April and in late July of this year presented its report at the U. S. General Services Administration. The group presented 21 recommendations including a defined set of best practices and standards for federal CIOs to improve transparency, reduce waste and increase the efficiency of IT spending. The report is a response to the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) of 2014, which paved the way for new efforts to control spending by creating requirements for improving acquisition and operation of Federal IT assets. FITARA gives agency CIOs more authority over IT resources throughout their agencies, with a goal of greater cost transparency, efficiency and cost savings. IT COSTS’s report estimated that the U. S. government could save $5.8 billion a year while improving efficiency and modernizing systems if these recommendations are followed. GSA CIO David Shive said on his blog in advance of the meeting with IT COST that the TBM approach will be critical to “delivering better value and savings for our customer agencies, making a more sustainable government and leading with innovation.” CIO.com talked to Todd Lavieri, president of Information Services Group, one of six private-sector partners named to the IT COST Commission, about the process of developing the report, the biggest opportunities for improving federal IT spending, and the two big areas in which federal IT has the private sector beat. The “fact” workstream defined a common cost taxonomy for all federal IT cost identification, estimation and reporting. The “IT investment framework” worksteam focused on understanding the costs of capabilities, activities, deliverables and supporting services by IT investment. The “financial framework” workstream focused on understanding aggregated cost and colors of money of IT capabilities and supporting services. The “federal policy and data requirements” workstream summarized all summarize all federal policy, standards, guidelines, circulars and data and reporting requirements related to IT costs. ISG focused on the Financial Framework workstream to define a set of recommended federal TBM metrics and potential benchmarking opportunities (both inter-agency and against non-government organizations) in collaboration with the GSA and the Department of Interior. Each workstream met as a separate project team throughout the course of November 2015 to March 2016 and came together as a collective team for a formal readout in May 2016 in Washington, DC. The final Report was issued in July. Given ISG’s breadth and depth of commercial metrics available based on our experience working with clients on benchmarking and sourcing transactions, it was a straightforward exercise for our team to pool together an initial mix of metrics that we find most valuable for our clients. The TBM taxonomy (an approach to aggregating IT financial and operational data), is based on the standard taxonomies that ISG uses to produce benchmarking studies and prepare sourcing transactions for our clients. The major outlier in the Federal government environment is the proper treatment of ‘colors of money’ within the TBM data and processes. We were challenged at one point that there are ‘significant reporting’ requirements due to federal laws and regulatory practices that can drive IT costs. We reminded the members that there are also very significant reporting needs in the private sector due to federal laws and regulation as well—comparatively more for each private entity as a matter of course, especially small and midsized businesses.

2016-08-05 07:57 Stephanie Overby www.itnews.com

75 The Trump train wreck fueled by confirmation bias You have to admit that watching Donald Trump run for president is funny in an incredibly painful way. During the primaries he seemed to be Teflon. I think we can now attribute his win to the fact that no one really took him seriously until it was too late, or as a result of using a strategy that worked for Pat Buchanan and Howard Stern. Now in the general election it seems he has turned to glue and nearly everything he has done since has caused his poll numbers to go down. I think this is largely because he simply doesn’t believe in hard facts. He admittedly lives on Twitter and appears to not only take what he agrees with as fact, but to pretty much ignore all forms of independent data speaking out against both focus groups and analytics. I think we can learn from his train wreck because while Trump may seem extreme, his blinders are so common we have a name for them: Confirmation bias . Confirmation bias is when someone forms an opinion and then will accept only information that agrees with it discounting or ignoring everything else. The biggest example to date was likely the WMD belief that started the Iraq War. There were none. Decades ago while in IBM I was, along with a considerable number of others, very frustrated because it seemed obvious that IBM was on a managed path to failure yet the top executives seemed completely ignorant of the problem. I cornered IBM’s head of marketing and he spoke to me as if I was a small child explaining that IBM sold the equivalent of air and that customers had no choice but to buy what was sold. Thinking back, it strikes me that if this were the case what did we actually need a CMO for? Who needs to advertise air? John Akers , who not only was a well-regarded and incredibly smart CEO, was then blindsided by the firm’s slide and remains the only IBM CEO ever fired. I later interviewed one of his aids to discover that over the years the office of the CEO had become effectively surrounded by information translators who told the CEO what he wanted to hear and effectively covered up any problems. Granted there were organizations like internal audit that reported through this barrier, but I know that those that found problems aggressively were discounted in favor of teams that reported favorable results. Even in competitive analysis, where I also served, there were teams that reported accurately the problems with products and teams that reported that IBM’s products were unbeatable. In looking at the performance of our team against the other, we were defunded, and the business the other team supported went from 95 percent market share to 35 percent market. Now, to be clear, both businesses failed. Our information was disregarded resulting in failure and the other team’s information was false resulting in failure. I recall being told that the executives were going to do what they wanted to regardless and failure wasn’t my responsibility, therefore, the smart analyst reported what the client wanted to hear not what they needed to know. While this still seems insane to me and I disregarded it at the time, in hindsight it was actually very good career advice, but an incredibly horrible way to run companies. The second time I ran head-on into that buzz saw, apparently I’m a slow learner, was when I left IBM and became an analyst. I took over an operating system service that was on life support. Because I’d helped run a team that had tried to spin out the IBM software division I had massive amounts of market information which indicated that virtually every OS but one was vulnerable. The report not only made me famous, it had CEOs lining up to fire me. It was kind of a race to see if I, or Dataquest’s CEO, would be fired first. To suggest she was not happy would be an understatement. I remember one call in particular with IBM regarding OS/2 where I suggested that the AR manager give the IBM management team a heads up that I was going to issue the report. Her response was that I was a nobody and no one would care what my report had to say. The next day it was front page news worldwide and repeating what she said later that day would trigger any number of profanity filters.

2016-08-05 07:54 Rob Enderle www.itnews.com

76 Hotel chain bets big on digital transformation and is seeing great results Meliá Hotels International, one of Europe’s largest hotel chains with more than 370 properties, is in the middle of an aggressive digital transformation effort because it has seen the writing on the wall, and the writing is getting bigger at an alarming rate. “We believe that 70% of our customers will be coming through digital channels by 2017, so the company has to embrace and implement a full customer centric digital strategy now,” says Manuel Riego, Vice President of Global Digital Sales and Marketing. Two key factors are influencing the hotel chain’s thinking. “The first one,” Riego says, “is the evolution of the customer. His behavior is changing so much in today’s market and, if you don’t understand your customer perfectly, you are going to struggle with long term growth. Secondly, since Meliá is a hotel management company, the way we give value to our owners is by attracting customers that pay more and attracting them at the lowest cost. We believe the most efficient way to do that is to win customers through our own channel, and this is why our digital transformation plan is so important.” Meliá started on the transformation a few years ago, Riego says, but in 2014 when it recognized how rapidly things were progressing, it called in Accenture. “The whole program is about driving direct bookings,” says Kevin Carl, global managing director of Digital at Accenture Travel. Online travel sites have been interjecting themselves between customers and the hotels, so if hotels can get customers to book directly “it reinforces the brand and it lowers costs because the hotels don’t have to pay commissions,” he says. Most importantly, Carl says, when somebody books through a third party, the hotel company doesn’t know anything about the guest until they show up. “If they book direct, the hotel knows who’s coming, they know something about them, they can learn more about their behavior. They can also sell them on other products and service before or when they arrive, so establishing that direct relationship before the stay is critical.” There are multiple facets in what has become known at Meliá as the “Be More Digital” program, Riego says. The first goal was to drive more qualified traffic to the company’s Web site. “Based on work with Accenture, we attracted more than 40 million visitors to our website in 2015, up from 31 million the year before, and 50% of the online traffic was from mobile devices,” Riego says (up from 37%). That was achieved, Carl says, with global and regional digital marketing efforts. The second goal was to improve conversion. Accenture helped develop a new responsive website “so customers would have a seamless, multi- device experience,” Riego says, and that helped “better position Meliá to capitalize on the mobile market opportunity that is growing in the hotel industry.” Improving conversion also involved creating dynamic landing pages and using multi-variant testing campaigns, Carl says. As the pieces were coming together Meliá realized it needed some internal change to capitalize on the information the digital transformation was generating. “We said, why don’t we create an analytics team to support our big data and understand our customers at a deeper level and in a way that will expand our customer knowledge,” Riego says. “So we created a team to focus on analyzing our customers’ preferences and then they can share that data with the marketing department so we can create personalized propositions for customers.” The fourth and last part of the digital transformation plan was to digitize the hotel’s loyalty program. “Accenture helped us redefine the whole strategy of the Meliá Rewards Loyalty Program,” Riego says. “The loyalty program was always focused on reward points, but fell short in evoking a strong relationship with the Meliá brands.” Instead of just using reward points to get rooms for free, today travelers can redeem points for a whole range of activities at the hotel, including spa treatments or food and drink services at the bar, Riego says. “It was also important for us to connect with the customer throughout their journey, so now benefits extend outside of the booking and on-property experience, such as offering access to VIP lounges in airports.” These benefits “have helped us establish a stronger emotional connection between the customer and Meliá Hotels,” Riego says. “This is a big change in the loyalty program - going from a transactional vision with points to a much more emotional connection.” And it seems to be working. Meliá has since added more than a million reward members which shows deepening loyalty to the brand and should result in repeat business. Riego says that, before this big digital push, 60% of the customers that booked directly through Meliá.com were reward members, and today that number has jumped to 80%. “Now the pillar of the revenue strategy of this company is Meliá Rewards,” Riego says. Asked if there any other measures to gauge the success of the program, he says: “Previously, we did not have the tools or knowledge to really get the most out of our customer database. In the past we sent 200 million communications a year. We still do 200 million, but now in a more segmented and efficient way. This effort has multiplied the incremental profit of these contacts by three, which translated into an increase of 50 million Euros in 2015 versus 2014.”

2016-08-05 07:20 John Dix www.itnews.com

77 Apple is losing smartphone share in India despite recent efforts Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has described India as one of the company's fastest growing markets and has proposed to the government a program to offer refurbished phones in the country as a way to get around the high prices of its devices in a price-sensitive market. Cook is also said to have discussed with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May the "possibilities of manufacturing and retailing in India," a move that would help the company avoid the high import duties on smartphones and other products that the authorities have imposed to encourage local manufacture. However, data from Strategy Analytics suggests that until these plans are put into action the company may continue to see a middling performance in the country. Shipments of the Apple iOS on smartphones fell to 800,000 in the second quarter from 1.2 million in the same quarter last year, according to the research firm. The market share of iOS on smartphones also dropped to 2.4 percent from 4.5 percent a year ago. In contrast, Android saw its share soar to over 97 percent from 90 percent in the same quarter last year. Android smartphone shipments grew to 29.8 million in the second quarter from 23.2 million in the same quarter last year, though these come from a large number of vendors including from Indian brands. Android looks unbeatable right now because of its deep portfolio of hardware partners, extensive distribution channels, and a wide range of low-cost apps like Gmail, said Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics, in a statement. Total smartphone shipments in India grew 19 percent annually to 30.7 million in the second quarter of this year from 25.8 million units in the second quarter of 2015. However, there is disagreement as to whether Apple is doing badly in the Indian market after its recent efforts to shore up distribution of its products, introduce promotions and offer the cheaper iPhone SE in the country. Gartner estimates that sales of the Apple iPhone are likely to have picked up between 15-20 percent by units in the second quarter over the same quarter in the previous year, according to its research director Anshul Gupta. That may not, however, translate into a dramatic number of Apple phones shipped, as the company is starting from a small base in the country. Apple does not publish its India sales but according to Gartner’s estimates its iPhone shipments did not cross 1 million units in a quarter in the country at any point, Gupta said. Cook said in July during an earnings call that in the first three quarters of the company’s fiscal year, iPhone sales in India were up 51 percent year-on-year.

2016-08-05 04:41 John Ribeiro www.computerworld.com

78 The GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition & ASUS Strix GTX 1060 Review Back at a trade show some time ago, I once had a reader ask me what the most important price tier was for our video card reviews. Was it the high-end cards with their groundbreaking performance? Or was it the mainstream cards, which bring existing performance down to cheaper prices? It was a question I admittedly had to stop and think about for a moment. But in the end, as fun as the high-end cards are – and as fun as window shopping is – my answer to the question was that mainstream cards were more important. It is mainstream cards that more gamers can afford, and judging from trends in monitor sales, mainstream cards that most gamers actually need to drive their monitors. For the mainstream market then, a traditional NVIDIA top-to-bottom launch is both exciting and trying. Exciting because you get a sneak peek at what’s coming down the pipe in a couple of months, and trying because who doesn’t want a new video card right this second? Ultimately for NVIDIA’s largest market by volume, it means there’s a bit of a wait. But after that wait, here we are: GP106, the heart of the GeForce GTX 1060. Announced in early July , NVIDIA’s mainstream/enthusiast GPU is part of a quick succession of Pascal releases for the company, who has now released (in various fashions) 4 different Pascal GPUs. Of the Pascal family so far, GP106 is the smallest, and the cheapest. But for NVIDIA’s customers it may very well be the most important, as GTX 1060 significantly raises the performance bar for 1080p gaming. We’ll start things off as always with the specifications. GeForce GTX 1060 ships with a fully enabled GP106 GPU, so right off the bat we’re seeing the full capabilities of NVIDIA’s mainstream GPU. A full GP106 (and consequently GTX 1060) ships with 1280 CUDA cores, which is half the number found on GTX 1080/GP104. Similarly, this means we’re looking at half the texture units, and half of the polymorph geometry engines. However on the backend of the rendering pipeline, things are a bit more interesting NVIDIA deviates a bit from tradition, and a bit from making GP106 a true halving of GP104. Whereas you’d expect half of a GP104 to ship with 4 ROP/L2/MC partitions – for a total of 32 ROPs and a 128-bit memory bus – instead we get a 6 partition setup, only 2 partitions shy of GP104. The significance of this is threefold. First, it means that GP106 isn’t strictly half of a GP104. Second, it means that it has a higher ratio of ROP throughput, L2 cache capacity, and memory bandwidth per CUDA core than parts such as GTX 1080. Third, it’s only the second time in recent history where NVIDIA has used a larger backend configuration on a mainstream part – GK106 being the first – which after NVIDIA’s performance gains and overall success with Maxwell, comes as a bit of a surprise. In any case, what we’re left with is a slightly unbalanced design for GTX 1060/GP106. The GPU’s 10 SMs are divided up into two GPCs, half the configuration of GP104. This means that GP106 can rasterize 32 pixels per clock on the frontend, but the backend ROPs can accept 48 pixels per clock. This kind of imbalance is not a bad thing – the ROPs are responsible for other tasks such as MSAA that eat up more time – but it’s interesting thing to see happen, as it gives us a bit of an idea of what kind of bottlenecks NVIDIA needed to balance out behind the scenes in the development process. As it stands, I suspect that the larger backend is a compromise solution for coming up with more memory bandwidth versus GTX 960/GM206. Relative to their Maxwell predecessors, all of the other Pascal parts so far have received significant bandwidth increases in order to feed their faster GPUs. For GTX 1080 this was GDDR5X, and for GTX 1070 this was faster 8 Gbps GDDR5 combined with a unified 256-bit memory bus. For GP106 to follow this path, NVIDIA would need to either implement GDDR5X (a more costly and volume-limited technology at this time), or go with a wider memory bus (via a wider overall backend), and the company has seemingly opted for the latter. Meanwhile even with 6 ROP partitions, GP106 ends up being a relatively small chip. At 200mm2 on the dot, it’s 12% smaller than the 227mm2 GM206 that precedes it, and even smaller than the 214mm2 GK106 before that. This makes GP106 NVIDIA’s smallest mainstream (-06) GPU to date, something that no doubt is an important factor in keeping the GPU economical on TSMC’s cutting edge (read: more expensive) 16nm FinFET process. Moving on to clockspeeds, the GTX 1060 ships with a 1.7GHz boost clock, which is smack-dab in the middle of the boost clocks for the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070. In other words, the card is clocked just as high as its higher-end siblings, and the only difference will be the overall number of processing units within the GPU. On a pure SM basis this puts GTX 1060 at 4.35 TFLOPs, giving the card 67% of the compute and geometry performance of the GTX 1070. Or to compare it to the outgoing GTX 960, we’re looking at an 80% increase in those same metrics. Geeking out about GP106 aside, let’s talk about the rest of what makes up GeForce GTX 1060. Owing to its non-power-of-two memory bus size, GTX 1060 will be shipping with 6GB of VRAM, which is 2GB less than the GP104 cards and 2-4GB more than the older GTX 960. The card will use the same 8Gbps memory as on GTX 1070, giving the card 192GB/sec of total memory bandwidth, a hefty 71% increase over GTX 960. Combined with the increased memory compression efficiency of Pascal, it goes without saying that GTX 1060 should hopefully not find itself wanting for memory bandwidth. As for power and thermals, NVIDIA is slotting GTX 1060 in the same TDP envelope as the outgoing GTX 960, which is 120W. This makes the GTX 1060 NVIDIA’s flagship sub-150W card, suitable for installation in systems that only offer a single 6-pin power connector or can’t ventilate GTX 1070+ levels of heat. Overall NVIDIA’s TDPs have fluctuated a bit over the years, especially in the hyper-competitive mainstream market. After reaching a high of 170W with GTX 760, NVIDIA invested most of their Maxwell savings in lowering the TDP for GTX 960, and this seems to have worked out well for them. Still, I think it will be interesting to see if what follows GTX 1060 will stay below 150W, as we’re at the start of what’s likely a very long cycle on TSMC’s 16nm process. What does 120W get you then? In short, it gets you just shy of GTX 980 performance combined with Pascal’s feature set for 45W (27%) less power consumption. Or to frame this in reference of the other Pascal cards, we’re looking at about 73% of GTX 1070’s performance. Consequently this card rides a sometimes fine line between being a 1080p card and a 1440p card, but in practice it’s going to be best suited as a no-compromises 1080p card, especially as newer games hit the market. As for where it fits into the market, as with the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, the situation is a bit more complicated due to the presence of reference cards and how they’re priced and sold. NVIDIA has extended the Founders Edition line to the GTX 1060, offering a reference card here as well. However the Founders Edition card is once again positioned as a premium card, so while its otherwise stock performance is a good proxy for the GTX 1060’s baseline performance, its price and positioning is not. Equally important, unlike the higher-end cards, the GTX 1060 Founders Edition isn’t even a retail card in the traditional sense, but rather is only sold by NVIDIA through their web store. With the GTX 1060 then, the supply of cards is almost entirely partner focused. While the reference card exists, the only card sold through traditional retailers/etailers will be their semi and fully custom designs. For partners this is a good thing, as it means they can more readily differentiate themselves from one another and need not directly compete with the reference design. At the same time for buyers this means we’re looking at a wider variety of designs, ranging from basic MSRP designs to high-end designs like the custom card we’re also having a look at today, the ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1060 OC. Pricing then is equally variable. The base MSRP for GTX 1060 starts at $249, with the NVIDIA Founders Edition card retailing for $299. Various factory overclocked then run the gamut from $259 to $314 for the aforementioned ASUS card. The end result is that there are a lot of options on the market, both with the benefit of variety and the drawback of potentially having to do some hunting to get a specific card when it’s in stock. At least at MSRP then, the GTX 1060 is consistently priced with NVIDIA’s other Pascal cards, which is to say higher than the 900 series. Overall, GTX 1000 series pricing is closer to that of the 700 series, with the GTX 1060 launching at the same $249 price point the GTX 760 launched at back in 2013. As a result NVIDIA is going to miss the $199 mainstream sweet spot that the GTX 960 launched at, at least for the time being. As for the competition, at MSRP GTX 1060 is clearly a shot across the bow at AMD’s Radeon RX 480 8GB, not quite overlapping it in price but otherwise going after the same target market with very aggressive performance and power targets. The difference is going to be that while AMD offers a $199 option with the 4GB RX 480 (albeit in limited numbers), NVIDIA will be aiming higher entirely, so there’s not a perfect overlap between the two. That said, NVIDIA and its partners will still be aiming to make the GTX 1060 the better value in the long run. The bigger issue for NV and partners right now is the supply issue. NVIDIA has struggled to keep supply in check with demand for the entire GTX 1000 series. GTX 1060 has not proven any different in that regard. Inventory trackers show that cards come into stock regularly, but they also go just as quickly. The one thing that has gone better for buyers – or at least those who can get their hands on a card – is that prices haven’t gone over MSRP like on the other GeForce cards. GTX 1060 cards still hit the market at $249. Traditional economic theory means that having prices hold to MSRP is probably worsening the supply shortage – so there is a tradeoff to be had – but it also means that NVIDIA and its partners (and their retailers) aren’t gouging consumers.

2016-08-05 02:00 Ryan Smith www.anandtech.com Total 78 articles. Created at 2016-08-06 00:00